Best GPU for Ubuntu desktop ? (no gaming)

[altich88]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to turn my old Lynnfield machine into an Ubuntu development machine.

I will be removing the HD4890 and need a basic GPU for rendering 2 1080p monitors.

I've tried 3 different graphics cards with Ubuntu; HD4890, GTX260 and the integrated graphics of my work machine. Interestingly only the integrated graphics performed well without screen tearing, windows stuttering whilst dragging etc.

Have things improved a bit since the 2 old dedicated GPUs I tried? If so what would people recommend? I'd like something completely silent/passive.

Ta.

 

[Rainmaker]

Intel has great open source support (they work on the drivers) and that is supported by your experience. For the dedi cards did you use the binary (proprietary) drivers or the open source ones? Any modern Nvidia or AMD card should do you fine. I know traditionally Nvidia had the better drivers (albeit had a ****** attitude to the FOSS community), but I switched to an R9 380 recently and the AMD binary drivers work perfectly for me. You just go into the driver manager and it'll offer you the closed source driver. Click, hit Apply and you're done. Easy! It even works in a live environment.

 

[altich88]

For the dedi cards did you use the binary (proprietary) drivers or the open source ones? ... I switched to an R9 380 recently and the AMD binary drivers work perfectly for me.

I tried both for both cards but wasn't really satisfied with either. For the AMD card the open source drivers seemed better, but spun up the fan quite a lot.

That's encouraging to hear, I really don't want to have to buy a new mobo and CPU just to get an integrated chip!

I'm thinking of trying something like this:

MSI GeForce N210 SILENT 1024MB GDDR3 "Low Profile" PCI-Express Graphics Card

 

[stopper]

The gtx260 should work fine, you have to fix the tearing issues manually.
I posted a fix for it here
No idea if nvidia have fixed it for the 9xx cards, but you will get tearing on just about any other card after the 8800 unless you edit the xorg.conf.

EDIT: Reread your post properly and it seems that the 260 was a long time ago and no longer available?
Even so, you may still need to apply the fix I posted above with any nvidia card after the 8800.

 

[altich88]

The gtx260 should work fine, you have to fix the tearing issues manually.
I posted a fix for it here
EDIT: Reread your post properly and it seems that the 260 was a long time ago and no longer available?
Even so, you may still need to apply the fix I posted above with any nvidia card after the 8800.

I've still got it, so I'll give your fix a try and see if it's any better - thanks.