Nvidia vs ATI video cards

[danzer]

Hey folks,
I see alot of posts about video cards but since things change so often and with new drivers.
I was wondering which cards are best for running Kubuntu at high res and with all the fun of compiz?
And be good enough for future releases of Kubuntu with KDE4.x?
Which is easier to install (for a noob)?
Which would be less troublesome to trouble shoot?
Many thanks.

[krazy]

Re: Nvidia vs ATI video cards

Best cards at the moment are the r500 series radeons (ATI), they have accelerated 3d and 2d using open source drivers.

However this is limited to the r500 series and older, and does not include the recent HD 2xxx, HD 3xxx or HD 4xxx etc. (R600 and R700 series) See the status here.

NVIDIA also have reasonable support with their closed source drivers however very little support for recent cards using open drivers. Status here.

I've got a X1600 radeon (R500 series) in my notebook on the open radeon driver and it runs smooth desktop effects in Kubuntu, plays videos well and runs Nexuiz great!