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I am looking to upgrade my graphics card for my Linux box (it's actually dual boot).

Currently I have an nVidia card and I am reasonably happy with the proprietary drivers. What is the situation with drivers for AMD cards?

Which manufacture would you recommend for a Linux operating system?

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One thing you need to look out for right now is hybrid cards. These are integrated graphics cards in combination with discrete graphics cards. The issue is that there is little support and no full functionality when switching between cards. There's a program out there for the NVidia Optimus called bumblebee which still isn't up to par since you have to manually run an application and tell it to use the discrete card. – kobaltz Jul 22 '11 at 11:44
Hi @kobaltz, my motherboard doesn't support any of these technologies and I don't have an integrated graphics card either. I agree though that you need to take it into account when buying a new motherboard as well. – Grzenio Jul 22 '11 at 12:00
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NVidia probably has the best closed drivers, ATI the best open drivers. Intel is a mixed bag and doesn't have cutting-edge cards anyway.

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I do totally agree. If you need it for gaming Nvidia is the answer. – Pitto Jul 22 '11 at 12:41
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Nvidia's drivers are better than any open source driver, including ATI. ATI's closed driver is no match to NVidia; aside from performance and stability issues, ATI is always outdated with respect to latest Linux kernel and X.org version support (NVidia is always up do date). And Nvidia is the only one that keeps up with the latest OpenGL standard, and comes with good video acceleration (VDPAU). – Ambroz Bizjak Jul 22 '11 at 12:44
Would like to agree with Ambroz. nVidia's drivers, albeit closed, are always up to date and as far as I've seen very stable. I cannot speak to the performance difference, however concerning comparisons of Windows nVidia vs ATI drivers the distinctions are quite clear. One would only hope most of this performance carries over into Linux. Assuming you are running a popular x86/x86_64 architecture. – Nicholi Jul 22 '11 at 17:34
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