In the market for a GPU, would like to use Bazzite, mostly a Steam user with some SteamVR (rare), and have run into nvidia issues with Bazzite and a 3070 previously.
With the recent news on nVidia’s beta drivers and Plasma’s sync support in beta, I’m newly on the fence about switching to AMD given nvidia having a better performance to cost ratio, the power usage (big one for a compact living room system), and the fact that they have the potential for HDMI2.1 support which AMD doesn’t have a solution to yet.
What are community thoughts? I’ll probably hold out for some reports on the new drivers regardless, but wanted to check in with the hive mind.
While gaming performance with the nVidia drivers is often better (I’m talking about FPS alone, not taking into account the card price), the interaction with the desktop environments is way better for AMD, because their drivers are fully maintained as part of open source projects. What I mean are the tools to configure display resolution, and if you are using multiple monitors, their relative positioning. Everything just works. This alone is reason enough for me to strongly recommend AMD over nVidia.
HDMI is proprietary, so keep in mind that if anyone is ahead it’s because HDMI cock blocked AMD.
That said, Display Port is superior as it’s not proprietary so the sooner we move away from HDMI the better for all.
Other factors you may consider are – can you wait to see? Does it make sense to buy for features that haven’t been delivered yet and might not be as advertised? Only you can answer for you.
I’m running an AMD 7800 XT on Bazzite right now and it’s been my best Linux experience so far. I play stuff like Cyberpunk, Helldivers, Chivalry 2, etc all the time.
NVIDIA is getting better but AMD (and Intel Arc for that matter) is still more straightforward. No proprietary driver required as hardware support is right in the kernel, no need for any kernel modules and it’s pretty much plug-and-play. You can swap your AMD card for an Intel Arc card, do absolutely zero package/driver installs and it will boot right back to your desktop. It’s easier compared to Windows, while dealing with NVIDIA is harder.
Every time I’ve checked, AMD has way better raster performance to cost ratio. If you want RTX though (does it work properly on Linux?), NVIDIA is the best option.
My AMD card doesn’t use a ton of power. I’m rocking a 6650XT, which has pretty good performance (rivals consoles), was pretty cheap ($200-ish IIRC), and works for everything I’ve needed it for. It’s probably a bit sketchy for VR, but VR on Linux has bad enough support that it’s probably not going to matter either way. The HDMI 2.1 thing doesn’t bother me at all because I just use DP on my PC (doesn’t solve the living room system use case though).
I used NVIDIA for 5-ish years and it was fine, just not great. I’d have a driver breakage about 1-2x/year, which was easy enough to fix, but the more annoying thing was lack of Wayland support. Maybe it works now, but will it work for whatever comes out some years from now? I’m confident AMD will support Linux, I’m not confident that NVIDIA will.
So my choice is AMD because:
fantastic price/performance, provided you’re looking at mid-range - top end seems to use a lot more power
fantastic Linux support - haven’t had a single issue with drivers since switching from NVIDIA, and I’m loving Wayland
does everything I need it to do
But you do you. I’ve heard NVIDIA works fine as well, you just might run into a few issues here and there. For top-end performance, they have the crown, and nothing is close on RTX. I personally don’t need top-end performance, and the other issues are more important to me.
Since when do nvidia have a better performance to cost ratio? Have you been look at that gpubenchmark site that basically shills nvidia gpus and shits on and?
I was so confused when I read better performance to cost ratio for Nvidia because I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite and i think AMD is better for power consumption as well. Thanks for making me not feel insane.
That site is hot garbage and the owner for some reason hates AMD with a raging passion. Even the Intel subreddit used to ban its use just for how bias it was in their favour
While gaming performance with the nVidia drivers is often better (I’m talking about FPS alone, not taking into account the card price), the interaction with the desktop environments is way better for AMD, because their drivers are fully maintained as part of open source projects. What I mean are the tools to configure display resolution, and if you are using multiple monitors, their relative positioning. Everything just works. This alone is reason enough for me to strongly recommend AMD over nVidia.
HDMI is proprietary, so keep in mind that if anyone is ahead it’s because HDMI cock blocked AMD.
That said, Display Port is superior as it’s not proprietary so the sooner we move away from HDMI the better for all.
Other factors you may consider are – can you wait to see? Does it make sense to buy for features that haven’t been delivered yet and might not be as advertised? Only you can answer for you.
I’m on a borrowed GPU on my desktop, so can’t wait too long unfortunately.
I’m running an AMD 7800 XT on Bazzite right now and it’s been my best Linux experience so far. I play stuff like Cyberpunk, Helldivers, Chivalry 2, etc all the time.
NVIDIA is getting better but AMD (and Intel Arc for that matter) is still more straightforward. No proprietary driver required as hardware support is right in the kernel, no need for any kernel modules and it’s pretty much plug-and-play. You can swap your AMD card for an Intel Arc card, do absolutely zero package/driver installs and it will boot right back to your desktop. It’s easier compared to Windows, while dealing with NVIDIA is harder.
I would say wait to buy an AMD card (but you do you). Wayland Explicit Sync is out in the 555 driver, and NVK is cooking.
Every time I’ve checked, AMD has way better raster performance to cost ratio. If you want RTX though (does it work properly on Linux?), NVIDIA is the best option.
My AMD card doesn’t use a ton of power. I’m rocking a 6650XT, which has pretty good performance (rivals consoles), was pretty cheap ($200-ish IIRC), and works for everything I’ve needed it for. It’s probably a bit sketchy for VR, but VR on Linux has bad enough support that it’s probably not going to matter either way. The HDMI 2.1 thing doesn’t bother me at all because I just use DP on my PC (doesn’t solve the living room system use case though).
I used NVIDIA for 5-ish years and it was fine, just not great. I’d have a driver breakage about 1-2x/year, which was easy enough to fix, but the more annoying thing was lack of Wayland support. Maybe it works now, but will it work for whatever comes out some years from now? I’m confident AMD will support Linux, I’m not confident that NVIDIA will.
So my choice is AMD because:
But you do you. I’ve heard NVIDIA works fine as well, you just might run into a few issues here and there. For top-end performance, they have the crown, and nothing is close on RTX. I personally don’t need top-end performance, and the other issues are more important to me.
Yes it does. For example, Hans-Kristian Arntzen declared the DirectX Raytracing (DXR) implementation in VKD3D-proton as feature complete in February 2023 (https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/154#issuecomment-1434761594). And since November 2023/release 2.11, VKD3D-proton in fact runs with DXR enabled by default (https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/releases/tag/v2.11).
I feel like this is gonna be the year of the nvidia linux gamer. Nvidia is noticing us.
I think Nvidia is noticing Microsoft killing it’s OS for gamers and enthusiasts, and is worried AMD will overtake them when people switch to Linux.
I sure hope so because I was gonna spend my tax refund on an AMD GPU and then medical stuff happened. :'(
Since when do nvidia have a better performance to cost ratio? Have you been look at that gpubenchmark site that basically shills nvidia gpus and shits on and?
I was so confused when I read better performance to cost ratio for Nvidia because I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite and i think AMD is better for power consumption as well. Thanks for making me not feel insane.
Not OP, but which site?
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/
Go read the “reviews” on this site. Then click on the user GPUpro.
That site is hot garbage and the owner for some reason hates AMD with a raging passion. Even the Intel subreddit used to ban its use just for how bias it was in their favour
So that site is heavily biased toward Nvidia?
@EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted @Fizz Yep: https://www.quora.com/Is-userbenchmark-still-bad-and-is-it-reliable-as-a-vague-comparison-tool-mostly-for-GPUs-and-CPUs
Thanks for the info. 👍
Common rule: AMD for Linux, NVIDIA for anything else.
Recent news brings some hope that nvidia might also be okay in the future. For now, 100% AMD if you’ve got the choice.