HTPC/silent gaming rig GPU questions

[isprins]

CPU:
Intel® Core i5-3570K Processor
Socket-LGA1155, Quad Core, 3.4Ghz, 6MB,
Cooler:
Big Shuriken 2 rev. B

RAM:
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB CL9
Kit w/4x 4GB XMS3 modules, CL9-9-9-24, 1.5V, Vengeance Heatspreader, 240

MBO:
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3, Socket-1155
ATX, Z68, DDR3, 3xPCIe(3.0)x16, CFX&SLI, SATA 6Gb/s,USB3.0,FW,
VGA,DVI,HDMI, EFI

HDD:
Western Digital® Desktop Black 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5", Dual processor

Chassy:
Silverstone Lascala LC16B-M HTPC

That sorted out, what about the GPU card ?

The GPU Options are:

PowerColor Radeon HD 7750 1GB GDDR5
PCI-Express 3.0, "Go! Green", DL-DVI, native-HDMI, DisplayPort, Passive edition

ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, "ZONE Edition", DDR3, 2xDVI, mini-HDMI, Heatsink

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, "Windforce 2X OC", GDDR5, DL-DVI-D+DL-DVI-I, HDMI, DP, 1033Mhz

Sapphire Radeon HD 6570 1GB Ultimate Edition
silent

So, what card is best supported under Kubuntu/Mythbuntu ?

[james147]

I have never had a problem with nvidia cards.

[woodsmoke]

Hi
I thought that I'd let others chime in first but will offer this.

a) If you have not already done so, I assume that you have, I would go to the hardware compatability list and look at the comments:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/

b) Speaking ONLY from older smaller cards that I have run, I used to have a lot of the cards and would change them in and out to test them, but since things have moved on I'm kind of behind the times.

The "thing" about the companies that are not an "original" card is that USUALLY, not always, there is something "disabled" from the ORIGINAL setup so that it is not the original card so that the company can then:
i) sell it more inexpensively
ii) add some kind of tweak to distinguish themselves from the compeition. Thus.....these particular cards NEED the cd to add in a specialized driver.
iii) any time that there is some "other" kind of tweak, like "Go-Green(AND I AM NOT KNOCKING THAT), generally that kind of tweak is addressed by anothe proprietary driver, but in the Go-Green case it is probably a hardware thing for being an energy saver, so it should not affect the ability of Linux to support it, but it might, I do not know. Same for the mini-HDMI etc.
iv) I, persnally have run a variety of OLDER Sapphire cards and some of them worked and some did not.
v) PERSONALLY, I have never had a time in which a GigaByte did not run as stated.

However, I do not know what experience you have with physical hardware so if you already know this please do not be offended.

I would check the actual PCI slot and determine whether the slot has the "button" for holding the PCI express card in, such as for the tab on the card illustrated:



If it has such a button then the card can have the tab or not, but if it has the tab then sometimes getting the button to depress can be "trickey".

I, personally, use an old "leather working tool" that has a curved tip with a small button it, to depress the button.

One can also do it with something like a pencil, but doing that is quite often trickey.

One mightg purchase a dedicated tool, but I would not pay an exhorbitant price for it.

I can't seem to find an image of it but it is a plastic dingus about three inches long with a button on one end.

woodsmoke

[Spadge]

I had nothing but problems with ATI cards back when I used to have a mythbuntu box, and as that machine was always on the bottom of my hand-me-down pile I swore to never buy another ATI card again.

Now I don't need a card for mythbuntu as I changed over to a smart tv and a serviio server, but I still won't buy an AMD/ATI card.

I guess I'm just funny like that.