The fact that Linux servers does not reboot is not only because because Linux is reliable enough not to have to be rebooted every now and then. This is also becuase many Linux distributions like many other unix installations assume that the machine will be running 24/7.
If you would shut a Linux server down over night it does not only mean its services like NFS exports, web pages, CPU number crunching or whatever will not be avaiable during that time. For many distributions it will also mean that different housekeeping tasks configured by cron jobs to run at night will not be performed. Such housekeeping tasks might be stuff like updating the locate database, cleaning up temporary directories and rotating system logs.
The consensus of this discussion seems to be "Avoid ATI and choose a card with OpenSource drivers". I agree that there is no reason to care about the closed source ATI fglrx driver, but if you today want an opensource supported card with best possible 3D performance you will still probably end up buying an ATI card.
There is a comparision of opensource 3D performance of different cards at http://free3d.org/
In top of that list you will find ATI cards using the reverse engineered r300 driver. These cards are not on top of the list thanks to ATI which hasn't been helpful with the r300 driver.
Next below those cards, with about half the performance, you once again will find ATI cards. They use the r200 driver. That opensource driver was created with the help of ATI.
With about half the speed of the r200 cards comes the first non-ATI card, an intel one.
Matrox comes in at about half the speed of intel and at the end of the list comes nVidia. The reason that nVidia comes last is that the used nv driver does all 3D in software.
I think this list is very interesting. It tells Linux users which cards to buy and it is friendly competition for driver and card makers. I hope that some good results from the nouveau driver one day will make it to the list. I also hope that other card makers like intel will make faster cards to climb on the list. I also hope that new ATI cards will get supported by opensource drivers to get into good positions on the list.
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If you would shut a Linux server down over night it does not only mean its services like NFS exports, web pages, CPU number crunching or whatever will not be avaiable during that time. For many distributions it will also mean that different housekeeping tasks configured by cron jobs to run at night will not be performed. Such housekeeping tasks might be stuff like updating the locate database, cleaning up temporary directories and rotating system logs.
There is a comparision of opensource 3D performance of different cards at http://free3d.org/
In top of that list you will find ATI cards using the reverse engineered r300 driver. These cards are not on top of the list thanks to ATI which hasn't been helpful with the r300 driver.
Next below those cards, with about half the performance, you once again will find ATI cards. They use the r200 driver. That opensource driver was created with the help of ATI.
With about half the speed of the r200 cards comes the first non-ATI card, an intel one.
Matrox comes in at about half the speed of intel and at the end of the list comes nVidia. The reason that nVidia comes last is that the used nv driver does all 3D in software.
I think this list is very interesting. It tells Linux users which cards to buy and it is friendly competition for driver and card makers. I hope that some good results from the nouveau driver one day will make it to the list. I also hope that other card makers like intel will make faster cards to climb on the list. I also hope that new ATI cards will get supported by opensource drivers to get into good positions on the list.