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So, What graphics card is "best" in 3D on Linux? got closed. I understand the "we can't do shopping recommendations" rule, but I think there's a case to be made that graphics hardware in Linux is a special situation.

First, it's not like the "should I get Canon or Nikon" thing we see over on Photo-SE, because, it turns out that the field is so narrow that there probably is a right answer at any given time.

Second, Linux graphics have always been a particular pain point. Having an exception here is not necessarily going to send us barreling down a slippery slope of hardware recommendations. Most other things I can think of can be made general in a way that'll be both good forever and lead pretty directly to the question-asker finding what they need at Newegg or wherever. ("What should I look for in a SATA SSD?", and even "How can I find if a wifi card is going to work?")

I've tried to ask the question in a very general way at How do I choose a graphics card for Linux?, and I hope that's valuable, but I'm not quite satisfied.

Might we have room for "What's the best graphics card for 3D in Linux in 2011?" type questions?

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I've tried to ask the question in a very general way at How do I choose a graphics card for Linux?, and I hope that's valuable, but I'm not quite satisfied.

This seems like the right way to approach it.

The actual question you want to answer is something along the lines of:

How can I determine which graphics cards will have good support for my preferred flavor of Unix?

And, to be clear, what you want to avoid is

Which video card should I buy for Foo Linux?

The answer(s) should teach someone the general principles of how to evaluate suitability for this task in technical terms, so they can use that same advice in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 ... etc.

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I think this is a super-relevant type of question overall, since there are many factors involved that don't change (often):

  1. does the hardware vendor provide specs for their hardware
  2. are their open drivers for a certain cards chipset
  3. does the vendor provide a binary blob for their hardware

etc.

Best is subjective for sure, but I'm sure there's a good way to word this hardware-specific type of question.

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