Hi, i'm about to buy a new PC and with ATI releasing their specs i'm wondering what setup is best for working with Linux and Graphics (Mostly It is going to be Wow, War3:FT and SC), I'm getting both at a similar price:

a Dual Core 2.5 with an Nvidia Card (512 MB)

or an AMD Athlon X2 7750 with an Ati Radeon 3650Card (512 MB)

Mostly my concern is about the new nvidia drivers problems and if the realeasing of specs by Ati has produced improvement over the abismal state of their drivers or has results around the corner?

Thanks in advance for your time

In Linux, Nvidia drivers are still better than the ATI counterpart. (I'm talking about 180 above), the new ATI driver are not "around the corner"...

If you want to overclock, then the intel is the way to go, the 2.5G Dual Core are known to OC 4.0GHz or above without problems.

If you want ATI card and do not want to OC, then you can choose AMD, since it works with ATI card better.

Hi,
If you need a realtime kernel (eg. jack) or similar you need an
gpl display-device driver !

Nvidia or fglrx is proprietary closed source driver.

If you don't need high speed 3d you may check the http://wiki.x.org:80/wiki/Projects/Drivers
or http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonhd (for recent ati) for gpl drivers.

You get less problems using a gpl (open) xorg driver instead of a proprietary driver from a company
if you like to use recent kernels.

I prefer gpl drivers cause ...
- less problems using kernel features (realtime is impossible when using proprietary drivers)
- no problems on distributions, eg. debian contains xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd package
- political reason, drivers should be open

btw. AMD === ATI now

The Radeon HD cards (the 3650, for example) use the radeonhd driver, which is very new and doesn't yet support 3D acceleration. On the other hand, the older pre-HD cards use the radeon driver which has excellent drivers and KDE compositing is smooth and snappy. The proprietary fglrx driver is hit or miss, and I would avoid it.

I can't wait until the radeonhd driver finally gets up to speed. Maybe by the end of the year.

test the experimental drivers if you are in a hurry ..

or http://www.free3d.org/

Thanks for the advice, against my AMD (L) I decided to go for the intel due to the current state of 3D drivers favors them. I'll keep and eye on the Noveau Project.