Planning to buy a new laptop..

English Open Chat
#1

I am planning to by a new laptop. At present I am having a Compaq Pressario V6218TU laptop and I can say it is a decent laptop. But the only thing I missed in this system was a decent graphics card. It has a integrated Intel graphics card.

Now I am looking for a new laptop with a good graphics card and processor. I have read many times that managing NVIDIA graphics card is better than ATI cards in Linux. As I am not a expert this thing really matters to me. I can not tweak things beyond a point and I do not want to leave opensuse even if it means shelving my plans to buy a new laptop.

I live in India, and the maximum laptops I searched on the net are having ATI radeon graphics card. I think all of HP Laptops are having ATI Radeon cards. I even checked the USA site of HP and even there I could only see ATI.

My question is: Should I give preference for ATI or NVIDIA or it doesn’t matter as long as I am getting any one of them?

Also, are there any suggestion on any brand I should go for as far as Linux support is considered. What I want is a system with a good graphics card, processor and screen size of 15" and more (as these are the things I will not be able to upgrade later). I use my system mainly for learning a lot of programming, watching movies and play games sometimes and surfing.

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:
Vivek

#2

I just saw that ATI is a product of AMD and AMD is a sponsor of openSUSE, so there should be no issues with having a ATI graphics card (I think it will be even better than NVIDIA)…

Am I right? ?

#3

I just saw that ATI is a product of AMD and AMD is a sponsor of openSUSE, so there should be no issues with having a ATI graphics card (I think it will be even better than NVIDIA)…

Am I right? ?

Not as simple as that unfortaunately. Many would argue nvidia has the edge with respect to drivers and performance. FWIW, I have a laptop (3 yrs old now) with an ATI X300 chipset and use the proprietary fglrx driver and have had no issues.

Start by having a look at the [(http://lwn.net/Articles/287231/) is worth a read.

I’ll leave it to others to offer further advice on this and other hardware considerations.]("http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Video_Cards"Hardware Compatibility List for Video_Cards)

#4

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:56:01 +0000, vendetta18 wrote:

> I just saw that ATI is a product of AMD and AMD is a sponsor of
> openSUSE, so there should be no issues with having a ATI graphics card
> (I think it will be even better than NVIDIA)…
>
> Am I right? ?

It’s not that simple - no. If I had a choice, I’d go for nVidia. I just
picked up a secondhand Dell D610 for my wife, and with the fglrx driver,
suspend doesn’t work. I remember having that problem before with that
driver as well.

I’ve not had any problems with the nVidia driver recently.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator

#5

I recently bought a HP Pav dv4, and it has Intel graphics.
And i purposely choose with Intel graphics. Because i didn’t find any problems with this card in any Linux variant. It just go well with every install.
When you post here, it put me in thinking, that are you using M$ windozzz for games?
If not, then i think, Intel should be OK.

And one question from all: Why prefer Nvidia/ATI over Intel for normal use. If i am not playing games.
I think in Linux, there is no such things which need Nvidia/ATI to use. Am i wrong?

#6

And one question from all: Why prefer Nvidia/ATI over Intel for normal use. If i am not playing games.
I think in Linux, there is no such things which need Nvidia/ATI to use. Am i wrong?

I would be wary of choosing a laptop with intel graphics unless you’re really not worried about graphics performance. Of course it will depend on the exact chipset, but many intel users have reported having problems with flash images and video playback for example. Interesting article about intel graphics and recent distros:

The status of Intel video drivers for Linux (and what it means for your favorite distro)

Conversely, the intel drivers are open source, under heavy development, and they are gradually getting better with each new Xorg version. It will be interesting to see how openSUSE 11.2 plays with this hardware.

#7

I know @swerdna did get one of these: Is the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P7370 (2.0GHz) 64 bit? - Page 2 - openSUSE Forums

Just read on from the point in the link

#8

When I went to purchase my laptop, nvidia vs ATI vs Intel graphics played a fair role in the selection.

I’m a big nVidia fan, and where I have a choice (the wife does now always allow me one) for a desktop PC I will chose a nVidia card, just because in my limited experience on this, the current nVidia drivers appear to function better than the ATI drivers. I also like the vdpau (pure video) capabilities with the nVidia driver, where ATI’s avivo equivalent does not function in Linux.

BUT for a laptop, I recently deliberately chose a laptop with ATI. Why? The simple answer is quality/reliability. nVidia graphics hardware have been plagued by horrific quality problems, resulting in massive returns. This has impacted both desktop and laptops. I have read stories of many returns of nVidia cards, I have work colleagues whose nVidia cards have failed, I have internet openSUSE friends whose nVidia cards (and laptops with such devices) have failed, … nVidia in recent shareholders meetings announced massive amounts of money having to be put aside to handle the very large problem.

The problem also appears more likely to occur in a laptop, as heat issues, and higher ON/OFF cycles can cause the troublesome component in the nVidia hardware to fail.

In a desktop, such a failure does not matter as much to me. I have multiple PCs at home, plus a spare graphic card. I’ll put up with the risk as I know the failure of a nVidia card in a PC in our apartment is minimal. Only a minor nuisance.

But a failure in a laptop when on the road, for me, is fatal and could impact a business meeting. I won’t take the risk there (of a nVidia failure) and hence for our recent laptop, I reluctantly chose ATI. At that time of my laptop purchase, there were also many laptops with Intel graphics devices that looked appealing, but as has already been noted, the Intel graphics drivers went through a phase (and its not clear to me yet that they are out of that phase) where Intel graphics devices did not work well under Linux.

My oldest laptop, an old (5-years) Fujitsu/Siemens Amilo M7400, has Intel graphics and it has served me well.

But back in Nov-2008, when I purchased my recent laptop, ATI appeared my best choice for a laptop for my specific requirements (where reliability is at the top of the selection criteria).

#9

> Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

not sure and haven’t googled to see (that is your job) but i think
both Lenovo and Dell sells a laptop with nVidia graphics and Linux
factory installed…

sure, it probably costs more than any of the generic Windoz’s machines
you can find locally, which may or may NOT ever work exactly
correctly…but there is often a justifiable reason for the higher
initial price (like compatibility, usability, stability, reliability,
longevity, etc etc etc)…

sometimes, when you look at the time saved fiddling with trying to
make it work…or…how long it does work, it is in the end less
costly overall…

–
goldie
caveat: i am in no way associated with Lenovo or Dell…i don’t even
own one (or any laptop)…

#10

I did Google a lot and checked out individual HP, DELL, Acer, etc sites but I do not know why the majority of models rolled out by all the manufacturers are having ATI graphics card. I just found one HP laptop with NVIDIA graphics card. All models using NVIDIA graphics card have been phased out.

But I see I have to read a lot before deciding anything.
Thanks for all the suggestions :slight_smile:

#11

My view on this is MANY laptop suppliers were badly burned with the significantly high number of laptop failures, where the nvidia card failed, forcing a return. The laptop manufacturers obtain some compensation from nVidia, but not enough to justify the money they lost as a result of the returns.

Hence many of them are “gun shy” about using nVidia, and despite nVidia producing some very capable cards from a performance perspective, the manufactureres are leary of more poor nvidia quality and they are worried about continued failures in nVidia graphic hardware. So ATI (and Intel) graphics are become much more common place in laptops, at the expense of nVidia graphics.

I posted extensively on this last November, when I was searching for a new laptop.

#12

On Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:06:01 +0000, deano ferrari wrote:

>> And one question from all: Why prefer Nvidia/ATI over Intel for normal
>> use. If i am not playing games.
>> I think in Linux, there is no such things which need Nvidia/ATI to use.
>> Am i wrong?
>
> I would be wary of choosing a laptop with intel graphics unless you’re
> really not worried about graphics performance. Of course it will depend
> on the exact chipset, but many intel users have reported having problems
> with flash images and video playback for example. Interesting article
> about intel graphics and recent distros:
>
> ‘The status of Intel video drivers for Linux (and what it means for your
> favorite distro)’
> (http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090817#feature)
>
> Conversely, the intel drivers are open source, under heavy development,
> and they are gradually getting better with each new Xorg version. It
> will be interesting to see how openSUSE 11.2 plays with this hardware.

I would tend to agree with this - the Intel model numbers are very close
and easy to mix up if you don’t read carefully.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator

#13

Right now I am thinking that knowing more is also a bad thing. If I wouldn’t knew in what way a processor and graphics card will help me I would have gone straight away and bought just a good looking machine.lol! But, thanks for everyone’s input.

I have just pin pointed a laptop I think I will buy. Its here HP Pavilion dv6-1211ax Entertainment Notebook PC*-* Product Specifications - HP Customer Care (India - English). Its having ATI Readon graphics card and AMD processor.

Right now looking for a good deal and hoping that everything works fine with this machine :).

Thanks again for all your valuable time and nice suggestions.

#14

The HP dv6 looks nice.

If you have sound hiccups, post here and someone should be able to help. I’ve helped a few HP DV6 users get their sound working.

Unfortunately, none of these users have updated the HCL to reflect the fact that their sound now functions. So I just added that now to the HCL: HCL/Laptops/HP - openSUSE

#15

Thanks oldcpu…

I remember when I was new to openSUSE(and Linux also) and faced a lots of problem regarding sound from my laptop. It were your threads that helped me out. Since then I have been using these tricks to solve my sound problems whenever I face them… :slight_smile:

This I know, if I face any problem there will be people out here helping me just like they have been helping a dozens of others… :slight_smile: