Help me buy a new graphics card

[Mozenrath]

My PNY Geforce GT (somethingorother) has a dead fan and is pretty much unusable. I'm ready to buy a new graphics card.

Here are my criteria:

- Preferrably an Nvidia card.
- Most compatible with Linux Mint 13.
- Around the price of $200.
- Won't have tearing issues(nearly every graphics card I've used with multiple versions of linux has some video tearing).
- For someone who does a moderate amount of animation/editing/compositing.
- Something I can overclock fairly easily/safely.
- PCI-Express x16
- Preferrably 2GB ram, unless a card with a smaller amount of ram performs better.
- Two DVI ports for multiple monitors(I think this is standard now, though).
- GDDR5 ram.


So can anyone help me out here? I've noticed that people asking similar questions on the internet are always told by graphics/gaming snobs to get the best card in existence, but all I want is something that has the best performance for what I can afford(best value).

[grepnix]

Like you, I would choose nvidia. As for best value I would look at the following list:-

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

Then I would run the top cards on that list through google, checking for linux problems before making a final decision.
The GeForce GTX 660 is rated best value of the Nvidia cards...

Regards,
Grepnix

[Mozenrath]

Wow, thanks! I've never seen that site. Nifty!

[Mozenrath]

The GeForce GTX 660 seems like a pretty good deal, and a lot of the cards that fit most of my criteria on eBay are around the $200 range.

Now I have a follow-up question for anyone with some input:

Are there any manufacturers I should go for or avoid? Years ago I had a BFG card that was pretty good; my last card was a PNY that I was never that happy with. It was just alright, but the fan made noise and eventually broke down. The card I am using now is an EVGA, which has a Geforce GT 610. Not very good, but I needed a cheap card as a stop-gap because I need my computer for my occupation. It's actually pretty good with games, but when it comes to rendering video with Nuke, it's a piece of trash. Well, maybe not trash, but it takes longer than it really should to render out a video that's just a few minutes long.

EDIT: Also, what about Zotac? I came across a few of those on eBay and I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with that manufacturer.

[fuzzyanalysis]

So many people get this question wrong.

There are models of NVidia, ATI, AMD, Intel etc video cards that do and do not work with various versions of Linux. It is model-specific, not brand-specific. You can't just say "all NVidia cards suck with linux," for example, because that is a fallacy of composition a.k.a. a blanket statement. Focus on getting the right model, regardless of the make (brand).

[Christo]

I have a Radeon R7 240 and it does not perform well at all with linux (great in windows though).
My brother has a Radeon HD 5750 And that is worse yet.
My next card will most likely be Nvidia.