What video card for 1920x1080p linux? My pc build XW4400

[Emulex]

I got a bare 975 express based hp xw4400 for $360 with XP PRO (it was $25 more than no-o/s). Has a very basic quadro 64mb turbocache dualhead card in it. It comes with 2x256 non-ecc and i'll throw in my spare 2x1gb hp memory ($17 A/R). That should run dual-interleaved. I may even try the e4300 defroster mod but i'll doubt i'll need that much cpu to play XBMC linux once it finalizes. This is a nice workstation from HP that comes with on-site next business day service for 3 years (nice). That was one of the deciding factors versus white box plus the price wasn't aweful

I plan to try vista for kicks, then move to ubuntu for XBMC linux.

You can add another video card since it supports two. But i'm curious as to what video card ubuntu (nvidia drivers considered) will actually be able to sustain the 1920x1080@60hz to my westinghouse 42"?

Most of the storage will be external as i have the drives already on a NAS (the idea is to remove the NAS boxen and dying Xbox1 which can't play the new high def formats) and work on XBMC linux (dev).

the 975 express is a solid 2005 design motherboard. It should be really compatible with just about any o/s imo. It will run ethernet to my wrt54GS to eliminate further issues (wifi cards never seem as stable as a real router).

I figure i'll keep the dual-head video card for another pc since while it is lacking in gaming, it does offer dual-dvi and dual-vga splitter from the strange single dvi connector. Might be good for low end 2D cad with Quadro drivers too.

I doubt directx 10 will really do much for video playback so expensive 8800 series seems ridiculous.

What would be a good video card that is optimal with linux nvidia drivers for my goal?

 

[postmortemIA]

It doesn't matter, nvidia drivers take care of it... any distro that you can install nvidia driver easily.

 

[Emulex]

well i want to keep it budget i was thinking 8600GT $110 or 7800 about the same price.

the 8600 is slower sure but it will have h.264 hardware acceleration (someday). i've heard there were some issues with 8xxx series in linux but maybe beta drivers migh help.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: Emulex
well i want to keep it budget i was thinking 8600GT $110 or 7800 about the same price.

the 8600 is slower sure but it will have h.264 hardware acceleration (someday). i've heard there were some issues with 8xxx series in linux but maybe beta drivers migh help.

Unfortunately, the current situation is that there is only hardware acceleration for mpeg1/2, but not mpeg4 (so no h264) for both nvidia and ati in linux. Its a shame though, first company to supply any kind of card that can accelerate h264 video streams under linux will have my money.