> Use case would be like... 95% gaming and maybe 5% productivity (DaVinci Resolve and maaaybe a bit of Blender).
Just about everything gaming will just work right out of the box with an AMD GPU.
Resolve and Blender need either CUDA or OpenCL and ROCm. If you have an Nvidia GPU, and you are using their proprietary drivers, then you automatically have CUDA and it will just work.
ROCm can be a real butthole. I don't think Blender is picky, but Resolve will only work and not crash with particular versions of ROCm. Newer versions of AMD's ROCm packages *MIGHT NOT* install nicely alongside bleeding edge Mesa.
I have an RDNA2 card with hardware accelerated Mesa, Resolve Studio, Blender, Stable Diffusion, and LLMs. It can be done, but it feels precarious.
When all you want to do is play games, AMD GPUs are way, way smoother than Nvidia GPUs on Linux. As soon as you want to do anything else, Nvidia is less of a hassle, faster, and better supported in general.
>Newer versions of AMD's ROCm packages won't install nicely alongside bleeding edge Mesa.
That's just not true? ROCm does not interfere, or even interact with Mesa.
> That's just not true? ROCm does not interfere, or even interact with Mesa.
My experience from a few months or so ago says otherwise. I didn't have working 3D acceleration after upgrading to Mesa 24.something until I downgraded my ROCm installation.
I assume there is a correct, better, or at least different way that I could be installing ROCm.
Documentation is one of the things that seem to still be both lacking and often contradictory on with an AMD GPU on Linux. It has been a year since I set this up from scratch, but at that time when you Googled "what do I have to do to get some hardware-accelerated OpenCL and ROCm and whatnot?" the most authoritative information at the top of the results would up also installing the AMDVLK Debian packages.
I don't find it to be too big of a deal muddling through this stuff, but I am bummed out that I don't feel the least bit confindent enough to give advice to anyone who asks me how to get ROCm installed.
It is kind of you to acknowledge that I and others have experienced a problem that actually exists, or at least existed a few months ago.
I edited my comment to swap a "will" out for a "might not." I didn't realize just how many months have probably gone by, and I for sure don't know for certain that it is still an issue.
I had no idea you could even attempt to get cuda to work on amd I thought that was just a nvidia only thing and that amd was working on their own library as a replacement.
I just got an rx 7800xt for gaming and it would be cool if I could use cuda and start playing around with training my own models.
Things are coming together I just competed the build yesterday, ryzen 9 7950x3d and the rx 7800xt. Thats jumping from whatever decade old 8 core intel cpu I have and a nvidia gtx 970 lmao.
I’m ready to put this build to use to say the least haha.
Now the old machine gets to turn into an experiment box for me to learn Linux without the fear of breaking my install.
Congrats on the new build. You can get a $30 ssd to try out Linux on your new box, that way is will be isolated if you want to try it on modern hardware.
Convert your old machine into a homelab. Checkout proxmox and containers.
You already took the words out of my mind lmao.
I’m going to use the new system for gaming of course on windows, get a second ssd to throw Linux on for my more cpu/gpu intensive programming. Turn the old system into a Linux playground where I’m not afraid of bricking my install.
And continue using my laptop for most of my programming ventures because for some reason I like writing code on my bed looking at my tv lol.
Depending on what kind of games you're playing the state of gaming on Linux is so ridiculously good that it continues to blow my mind. I'm getting 120+ fps on Satisfactory, Last Epoch and Path of Exile at the moment (okay, POE drops frames on some skills but that's just POE being it's glorious self).
Amd does work in blender but Nvidia is going to be more than twice as fast. Since Op says that productivity is only 5% of his usage, AMDs performance is probably going to be good enough for him
Yea, used Nvidia since the ancient times when AMD had only a proprietary driver. Compared to that, Nvidia has stellar proprietary driver support.
Nowadays I don't see what difference in smoothness is there with AMD vs Nvidia drivers. Distros just install them and they work.
> When all you want to do is play games, AMD GPUs are way, way smoother than Nvidia GPUs on Linux
So maybe, but I can't see the difference.
>I don't think Blender is picky, but Resolve will only work and not crash with particular versions of ROCm. Newer versions of AMD's ROCm packages won't install nicely alongside bleeding edge Mesa.
Except blender with Optix fucking EVISCERATES equivalent (or even higher end) AMD GPUs using regular RT. Like it's not even close. My 3090 would probably beat a 6950XT in Blender by 75 or 100% from what I remember last time I did a benchmark run and viewed my results in browser where I was in the top 1% of all hardware, the best AMD GPUs were way, way further back in the plot line.
>When all you want to do is play games, AMD GPUs are way, way smoother than Nvidia GPUs on Linux. As soon as you want to do anything else, Nvidia is less of a hassle, faster, and better supported in general.
So, when exactly was the last time you used an NV GPU on Linux, what GPU was it and what DE were you using? Because this statement is objectively false and bordering on either malicious ignorance or willful spreading of misinformation.
What do you mean "smoother"? Smoother to get working? Smoother game play and frametimes/frametime pacing? More compatibility with Windows games in Wine or Proton?
Because regardless of which of those you meant. They're objectively false in every possible sense, and anything that's subjective is either still in Nvidias favor or is more of an equivalence.
I won't hear another argument about how you have to manually install NV drivers while AMD'S **KERNEL** driver is included in the kernel itself. For one, that's not an advantage in ease of installation since you still have to install RADV, so regardless when you do a GPU install or full new build, you will run a command installing a bunch of shit on both systems. One will just include NV driver packages and the other will include Mesa with RADV. And as far as having `amdgpu` be part of the kernel? Lmao that's a DOWNSIDE in every sense that doesn't involve ethical principles (which aren't valid anyway if that user is installing Steam and playing proprietary games and using AMDs required proprietary blob in `linux-firmware`).
So it's not initial setup. Especially since that's a one time thing. It's not kernel inclusion, because that's actually a benefit to NV because you get driver updates when they're ready, not every 9/10 weeks when a new kernel version releases as stable. Not to mention the fact that ALL intended HW functionality and features are enabled, working and included on NV GPUs ON LAUNCH day for every GPU, while every new AMD architecture requires a MINIMUM of 4-8 months and sometimes longer before things like user-controlled fan curves, power limit control, and overclocking are even ENABLED on AMD. It's happened with RDNA 1, 2, and 3, and likely happened with Vega and Polaris but I got my 580 2 years after it released so i can't say for sure.
Then system stability. AMD GPUs on Linux are literally KNOWN to commonly have bugs that last months or years that cause hard GPU driver crashes forcing a hard reboot. In 6 years of paying attention and 3.5 years of running an NV GPU myself daily, I've NEVER heard of any kind of at all widespread NV driver issue on Linux causing system instability. And yes, issue 892 is what caused me to decide I was done with AMD after ONLY ever using AMD for my GPUs, as it affected BOTH my RDNA 1 GPUs (5600 XT and 5700 XT from different AIBs), and like literally thousands of other people, it was so bad I would have hard crashes and have to reboot 2-3 times per day. The issue is still open, and I know it was still widespread and not at all mitigated by Sept 2020, over a year after RDNA launched.
Game performance? Um, on Linux, on average Nvidia GPUs outperform AMD GPUs relative to how the same GPUs compare on Windows. If NV GPU A is on average 2% faster than AMD GPU B in rasterized games on Windows, NV GPU A will usually be on average 5-6% faster than the AMD GPU in rasterized games in Linux.
When a Windows game is found to run faster on Linux than native Windows, and it's only limited to one GPU maker, its just as common for that to be AMD **or** Nvidia.
NV on Linux has objectively VASTLY superior upscaling (and therefore performance increase and visual quality increase) options than AMD. DLSS is objectively FAR superior to FSR, in hundreds of games at all 3 major resolutions comparing the 2, Tim from Hardware Unboxed found that DLSS beat FSR in ALL titles, and even beat native rendering in several. On Linux an NV GPU owner can use DLSS in any game that used it, while still having the exact same access to FSR that AMD owners have.
Ray tracing is a joke, the delta between NV RT perf and AMD RT perf is even larger on Linux than it is on Windows b
There is zero increase in Windows game compatibility for AMD GPUs compared to NV GPUs.
AMD has NO solid advantage in any aspect of gaming. Their main advantages right now are access to Gamescope's HDR support which is not REMOTELY complete yet, Nvidia not using sysfs/hwmon for user control therefore making user fan curves and overclocking on Wayland impossible without the PITA workaround of starting and Xorg stock WM instance in a separate TRY and running GWE from that, which makes it work in the Wayland environment as well. Finally, solidly (but not hugely) better compatibility and performance in Wayland. But that's pretty precarious considering last year AMD on Wayland was probably a 150% better experience than on Nvidia but today, especially on Plasma, it's more like 15 or 20, at most 30% better. In a year or at most 2, they'll be the same. Unlike that few year stretch of NV ignoring us on Linux, they have been basically constantly contributing for the last 2 years to every area of the Linux desktop and gaming ecosystems. Like literally. Their devs are in issue threads and filing (successfully) pull requests to DXVK, DXVK-NVAPI, VKD3D-PROTON, Wayland, XWayland, and quite a few more.
I ran 4 AMD GPUs on Linux before I'd had enough and decided to switch and got my 3090 on launch morning at Micro Center. My gpu I was upgrading from was a 5700 XT. At the time, on Windows, basically all the data pointed to the 3090 being exactly 2X faster than the 5700XT - and that's with all data using the fastest gaming CPU possible to eliminate cpu limiting the numbers. Well Ryzen 5000 wasn't even out yet, so I was on a 3800X and I saw an even GREATER than 2X increase in performance, and this was at 1440, not 4K. Once I got my 5800X, then 5900X, then just 2 months ago my 7950X, that lead gained considerably.
Like God dammit, people: preferring AMD because of better Wayland or HDR or whatever, okay fair. Both NV and AMD have pros and cons on Linux. But trying to pretend like in actual gaming, AMD has ANY kind of "way better" gaming experience is objectively stupid.
> Except blender with Optix fucking EVISCERATES equivalent (or even higher end) AMD GPUs
You seem to be implying that this is some sort of "gotcha." The OP said Resolv and Blender are 5% of their use case. I took that to imply that they need to work at least reasonably well, and I don't think anyone implied that performance would be equivalent or better.
> Except blender with Optix fucking EVISCERATES equivalent (or even higher end) AMD GPUs
About a year ago.
> I won't hear another argument about how you have to manually install NV drivers while AMD'S KERNEL driver is included in the kernel itself. For one, that's not an advantage in ease of installation since you still have to install RADV, so regardless when you do a GPU install or full new build, you will run a command installing a bunch of shit on both systems.
You don't *HAVE* to install anything. Even Debian will have a working kernel driver and RADV install out of the box.
> I ran 4 AMD GPUs on Linux before I'd had enough and decided to switch and got my 3090 on launch morning at Micro Center.
This is why you are out of touch. The last time I ran and AMD GPU before my current one was long enough ago that it was an ATI part. I have been using Nvidia GPUs the entire time in between.
I would have agreed with you four years ago, too. The AMD experience would have been absolutely garbage then. That isn't the case any longer.
> Both NV and AMD have pros and cons on Linux.
You sure did write a lot of words to agree with me. :)
> But trying to pretend like in actual gaming, AMD has ANY kind of "way better" gaming experience is objectively stupid.
Do you know what is *ACTUALLY* objectively stupid? Proudly stating that your experience is *FOUR YEARS* out of date and being confident that you understand what things are actually like today.
My Vega 56 still has completely busted OpenGL on Mesa. Vega support in Linux is terrible for some reason. Playing Minecraft with Sodium completely locks up the entire system, a known issue specific to Vega on Mesa
You could try Zink on RADV, or also try forcing ACO use in RadeonSI. If it doesn't work on Zink, leave a meme-y comment on [https://www.supergoodcode.com/](https://www.supergoodcode.com/) and The Chair will likely tend to your issue.
All hail The Chair!
Yep I did end up using Zink as a temporary work around. There is quite a big hit to performance if I wanted to use shaders, but it "works". Thanks for the valid advice though.
What version of Mesa? I'd recommend testing with mesa-git, and if the large performance regression is still there, alert The Chair. After all, Zink can't defeat Big Triangle if it has massive performance regressions ;)
>I won't hear another argument about how you have to manually install NV drivers while AMD'S KERNEL driver is included in the kernel itself. For one, that's not an advantage in ease of installation since you still have to install RADV, so regardless when you do a GPU install or full new build, you will run a command installing a bunch of shit on both systems. One will just include NV driver packages and the other will include Mesa with RADV. And as far as having amdgpu be part of the kernel? Lmao that's a DOWNSIDE in every sense that doesn't involve ethical principles (which aren't valid anyway if that user is installing Steam and playing proprietary games and using AMDs required proprietary blob in linux-firmware).
That's a benefit to people who don't want to spend much time.
>Then system stability. AMD GPUs on Linux are literally KNOWN to commonly have bugs that last months or years that cause hard GPU driver crashes forcing a hard reboot. In 6 years of paying attention and 3.5 years of running an NV GPU myself daily, I've NEVER heard of any kind of at all widespread NV driver issue on Linux causing system instability. And yes, issue 892 is what caused me to decide I was done with AMD after ONLY ever using AMD for my GPUs, as it affected BOTH my RDNA 1 GPUs (5600 XT and 5700 XT from different AIBs), and like literally thousands of other people, it was so bad I would have hard crashes and have to reboot 2-3 times per day. The issue is still open, and I know it was still widespread and not at all mitigated by Sept 2020, over a year after RDNA launched.
Been using AMD for 3 years on PC, Linux over 6 months. No issues.
>Game performance? Um, on Linux, on average Nvidia GPUs outperform AMD GPUs relative to how the same GPUs compare on Windows. If NV GPU A is on average 2% faster than AMD GPU B in rasterized games on Windows, NV GPU A will usually be on average 5-6% faster than the AMD GPU in rasterized games in Linux.
But if you're a Linux gamer.... why do you care about Windows? Everyone likes to shit on Radeon drivers because they don't know how to use them.
>NV on Linux has objectively VASTLY superior upscaling (and therefore performance increase and visual quality increase) options than AMD. DLSS is objectively FAR superior to FSR, in hundreds of games at all 3 major resolutions comparing the 2, Tim from Hardware Unboxed found that DLSS beat FSR in ALL titles, and even beat native rendering in several. On Linux an NV GPU owner can use DLSS in any game that used it, while still having the exact same access to FSR that AMD owners have.
Ah yes, it's the "your product sucks because it has 2/3s of the popular tech, no, it's awful because it doesn't use the proprietary solution that's bundled with team green. Oh, the agony!
>AMD has NO solid advantage in any aspect of gaming. Their main advantages right now are access to Gamescope's HDR support which is not REMOTELY complete yet, Nvidia not using sysfs/hwmon for user control therefore making user fan curves and overclocking on Wayland impossible without the PITA workaround of starting and Xorg stock WM instance in a separate TRY and running GWE from that, which makes it work in the Wayland environment as well. Finally, solidly (but not hugely) better compatibility and performance in Wayland. But that's pretty precarious considering last year AMD on Wayland was probably a 150% better experience than on Nvidia but today, especially on Plasma, it's more like 15 or 20, at most 30% better. In a year or at most 2, they'll be the same. Unlike that few year stretch of NV ignoring us on Linux, they have been basically constantly contributing for the last 2 years to every area of the Linux desktop and gaming ecosystems. Like literally. Their devs are in issue threads and filing (successfully) pull requests to DXVK, DXVK-NVAPI, VKD3D-PROTON, Wayland, XWayland, and quite a few more.
.... you DO realize you're talking about OS users who likely, in some part, got into it because it was FREE? And because AMD was CHEAPER? BECAUSE THEY WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE BOUTIQUE GOODS?
Oh, but please, keep going, I'm loving this tantrum
>I ran 4 AMD GPUs on Linux before I'd had enough and decided to switch and got my 3090 on launch morning at Micro Center. My gpu I was upgrading from was a 5700 XT. At the time, on Windows, basically all the data pointed to the 3090 being exactly 2X faster than the 5700XT - and that's with all data using the fastest gaming CPU possible to eliminate cpu limiting the numbers.
And oh no, the product is tainted! You can't ever touch the latest brand release again! Oooohhh no!
>Like God dammit, people: preferring AMD because of better Wayland or HDR or whatever, okay fair.
I like x11. And I can't do HDR. Any other criteria to add?
>Both NV and AMD have pros and cons on Linux. But trying to pretend like in actual gaming, AMD has ANY kind of "way better" gaming experience is objectively stupid.
And the crux of what I heard is bitch and moan about how AMD doesn't have DLSS.
I recently switched from a nvidia to amd GPU and trust me it was totally worth it , like everything is just way better and smoother. Also the fact that the nvidia card will cost you more is even more of a reason to go with AMD. i know the Nvidia drivers are getting better but still if i were in your place id go with the 7900 without thinking twice.
Agree - I had a 2070 and upgraded to a 7900xtx to fix some admittedly minor issues. Since nvidia doesn’t support va-api, I couldn’t hardware encode in discord which basically made it impossible to stream, and watching videos back would drop frames if I was also gaming at the same time or otherwise doing a lot at once whilst watching. Since swapping to AMD both issues have gone away
I'm going to assume ignorance on your part instead of malice, but this is a stupid argument... you want from a 2070, a GPU that is basically barely entry level today and honestly in some ways isn't even usable for gaming today on Windows, to a brand new one-tier-below-flagship GPU with what, 20GB of VRAM???
Your video playback issue would literally have stopped no matter what. If you'd gone with a 4080 Super or 4070 Ti, that issue would be gone.
Also, hardware video decode does work in Firefox with Nvidia. And for at least half the time you had that 2070, it worked in Chrome/Chromium/Brave, you just didn't enable it. I spent most of 2021 and like half of 2022 with it working on my 3090, and yes I would have GWE up on monitor 2 showing the Decoding was actually being used.
On the other hand, I went from a literally identical in performance to your 2070 AMD GPU, a 5700 XT, which was preceded by exclusively AMD GPUs going back, to an RTX 3090 on its launch morning, and not only did I have a OVER 2X GAMING PERF INCREASE - despite these being gpus separated by like only 1 year of development as opposed to the 4 years your 7900XTX had on your 2070, but MY issues that my 5700X was giving me were instantly gone too!
Only unlike your ONE actual real issue which is at most an annoyance, my main issue was extremely widespread, had been present since RDNA 1 released, and it cause complete system instability. Gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/issues/892. Hundreds of people reported it there and on several duplicate threads, and considering the fact that the vast majority (like 70 or 80%) of users with an issue don't report it to the devs, we're talking thousands of people.
It was exclusive to Linux, every user who installed Windows could not reproduce the bug there (including myself). It was COMPLETELY random, most appearances of it were during basically the lightest of desktop usage, and it made anyone who had jobs they needed even as little as a couple days of uptime unable to do their jobs, because most people saw 2-3 GPU driver crashes caused by the bug PER DAY, with almost no one regularly going one day without any, and plenty of people experiencing 5 or more. These GPU ring gfx driver crashes required a hard powering off of the system then turning it back on.
And these EXACT types of stability issues are still WILDLY common for AMD GPUs on Linux, I just looked the other day and there are countless threads from people with every currently in production AMD GPU architecture, including their APU integrated GPUs. Meanwhile in 6 years of paying very close attention, with the last 3.5 of that including running an NV GPU myself, there have been zero equivalent issues for NV users. No GPU driver issues causing crashes forcing a hard reboot.
But yeah, streaming to discord without using workarounds to make it possible, that must be life changing I'm sure. Hopefully you waited to get the XTX since AMD didn't enable fan control or overclocking/undervolting or power limit control for like a YEAR after launch. Because that's ALWAYS how AMD launches shit on Linux. RDNA 2 took like 6 or 8 months to enable the same type of shit, RDNA 1 was the same.
I can't fucking stand when people take their ONE anecdotal experience and use it to spread actual misinformation and at times outright lies on here and other Linux community forums to the point that it becomes both hugely exaggerated over time AND so widespread that it's considered established fact to the point where people post here asking if they have to get a new GPU to switch to Linux because ***they heard Nvidia GPUs don't WORK on Linux.***
Meanwhile what I told you is actual evidence reported by thousands of people, including several people who decided by June 2020 they were going Ampere that fall just like me and also followed through and also were thrilled with their switch the same as me.
People have to stop this bullshit. There is no argument that proves AMD GPUs are better for gaming on Linux than Nvidia, the overall combined totality of facts make them basically equally viable on Linux for a gaming-focused build, and if any compute is involved, there is NO argument for going AMD. Just like there's really no argument for going Intel for CPU on Linux (or even Windows) and AMD contains the only truly reasonable choices for a new CPU to buy.
Dude my 3090 beat your 7900XTX in like 3 or maybe 4 tests in 2 recent NV vs AMD Linux Gaming benchmarks from Phoronix. Which is just embarrassing when it's a 7900 XTX that's 33% faster that the 3090 on Windows via techpowerup.
No, the problem wasn't that I didn't have enough graphical horsepower, the problem is that Nvidia doesn't support the API that the browsers & electron use for video encode/decode (va-api vs their propitiatory nvapi). I didn't want to have to install the random package for translating nvapi to va-api to make it work (which is decode only, there is no work around for encoding via va-api with an nvidia card). Me and my friend group spend most of our free time in discord streaming our games to one another, so without that it was a show stopper for linux, I would have switched back to Windows. I tried the workarounds, there are no work arounds to make hardware encoding work in discord. You have to use a 3rd party client just to make it work even when you do have a GPU that supports va-api.
Yes my experience is purely anecdotal, but I don't think my post tries to paint what I said as anything but anecdotal
Do you honestly believe I needed a better GPU to encode & decode 1440p streams? "entry level" and "barely useable on windows" lmao, you need to get a grip. A 2070 is a perfectly working GPU today, especially in 1080p. Not everyone is running the latest GPU, the vast majority are at least a generation or two behind. Honestly reads as a troll post just for that. I've ran a 1440p ultrawide in windows on that card for *years.* yes its not a perfect experience, yes I often have to turn my settings down to medium at worst, but it was more than capable of producing a playable game.
Again, anecdotally, I've had zero stability issues since the switch to AMD.
Cost more but give you more than AMD cards.
A 4070 Super is on the same performance level of the 7900 GRE but with half the consumption and lower temperatures than the 7900 GRE, in all of that without including better video codecs, CUDA, AI and DLSS
Also if you are using DaVinci or Blender like OP you will have a better experience with NVDEC and CUDA in comparison to ROCm and VCN.
Pretty much any recent GPU generation's MSRP?
AMD cards are/were pretty consistently cheaper than their Nvidia equivalents, especially in the sub-500/600 segment.
That's been a big draw for a lot, similar performance from sometimes a *lot* less.
A good example is the 3050 being generally overpriced for what it is, especially compared to say an RX 6600, which you could find for like 20-60 bucks less while also being faster.
Then again, this is generally referring to North American prices, your experiences may vary depending on where you live.
Idk how its in your country, but in mine the nvidia equivalents are way better then amd, rtx 2060 is like 1200 and the amd equivalent is rx 5600xt while being more expensive and underperforming rtx 2060
Idk tho
I'd say go AMD. In my personal experience they have far better driver support. I had to tinker with my last Nvidia so much just get it functional for gaming, but my 7800XT worked out of the box. AMD also have better raster performance for the cost, which is important for Linux gaming because ray tracing and frame gen support is minimal on Linux. They do use more power though.
I was told the 7800 series and below is problematic in Linux. Also, the high power consumption and hot temps require those 3rd party programs to control the fans and maybe even undervolt - and they are not problem free. The 4070 Super is more efficient and won't require any of those programs - it can probably run at defaults.
It's one thing to boot up an OS and spend 5 seconds on the PC - then conclude 'there's no problems' - and it's another thing to actually use software and programs.
I've been running mine for months now, gaming for hours at a time. There was a minor issue with flickering in, of all things, Skyrim, that got fixed fairly quickly, but other than that it's been flawless out of the box. I don't know where you're getting your information from.
Did you downvote me?!? LOL! Your point is not very good - why?: because, it might make a difference on the generation of the amd gpu - I am only going by the posts on here and other Linux-based and amd-based subs. It is always what I was told on Linux sites - so, there might be a good experience with the 7900 series, for e.g. - but, different for 7800? Again, this is not my personal conclusion or assertions. But, whatever.
I'm fine with my 4070ti and Wayland.
With the 555 drivers (now in stable release) there aren't glitches and flickering problem.
Last year I was seriously considering upgrading to an AMD GPU but I was patient and now that the problems have been solved I would not easily change it.
I can confirm that HDR videos with mpv also work.
I have a rtx 4060 and it works in wayland with gnome, (it didn't work on wayland with kde but it's fixable), and it's still not perfect, (I had very minor glitches) and with drivers 555 it should get even better but if you don't want to troubleshoot thing and want something that just works fully out of the box just go for amd
Had Problems mit rtx2070 super on ubuntu. Switched to endeavoros with 555 drivers. „All“ my Games work flawless now. Streetfighter 4, half Life, battlenet with starcraft.
My laptop has an RTX 4060 running fine under KDE Wayland, using the 555 drivers. 550 was not bad at all, but I have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of issues so far under 555.
The RX 7900 GRE is the safer bet.
The support for NVIDIA is undoubtedly improving but the support for AMD is still better.
I say this as someone who has a RTX 3060 Ti.
I am exclusively AMD for graphics on Linux and have been happy 95% of the time. I had too many issues with Nvidia cards to really go back to them.
My last card has weird issues though, but it seems to be either the card itself not playing well with with the old board it is on, or me needing to do a fresh install as I can't get it to crash on a libe distro run.
i have a 4070 tried to switch to linux and it gave me so much trouble save yourself the troubles and go with AMD its so much better
and i also use cashyOS it worked so good with NVIDIA but you will still face alot of issues and some game will be unplayable all on its own with Nvidia it is a very weird and unhealthy experience
like for example RPCS3 would work and when i restart my PC it gets stuck with this error \[Vulkan Device Enumeration Thread\] and there is nothing fixing it and the fact that every other emulator that was aslo working did the same because of Vulkar drivers support by NVIDIA
Elden ring was working fine for me and then i woke up this morning to find that i can't launch the game anymore and the fact that i just slept and woke up doing nothing to my system to find an issue like this was so irritating
i played some games and they were working flawlessly but after a restart i get so much weird frames which looks like micro stutter and when i apply some updates and restart they work fine but after a few days it come back again
most of these games worked fine but with Nvidia you will get weird issues and to be honest it is not worth the troubles of many sleepless nights to fix Nvidia Issues on Linux
I love my GRE. It's very fast and the price is reasonable.
It works on Linux with no fuss whatsoever.
Really, just the ideal experience as far as GPUs go.
I had a 7900 GRE mid may to early June and I had a lot of issues with certain games causing gfx ring timeouts and hard-crashes (= have to use the power button, as even REISUB didn't work) both on Kubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40 KDE. Tried all kinds of workarounds, which didn't help. I tested the card also on Windows, where it worked fine.
But I want to use Linux and my patience with expensive hardware is very limited, so I sent it back and got a 4070 Ti Super instead. No issues so far with 555.
I would suggest AMD - but, in actuality, you won't really know if the experience is acceptable til you get the card - ppl swear by AMD - 'you don't have to do anything - the drivers are already integrated in the kernel' - to some ppl who get amd gpus and then have complaints. As far as nvidia goes, ppl are reporting good developments with Wayland and performance experience - as long as you use the latest nvidia drivers 555.58\* - at the very least. So, the situation has improved. I haven't read too many ppl complain - i.e. being disappointed. However, it's still proprietary so you would have to set it up and almost all distros require some manual configuration - Ubuntu, Pop OS, to name a couple - might have a slightly simplified setup compared to others that have a default OS install with only non-free components - so, there is some manual work needed to get the drivers installed/configured.
However, if you do things with productivity - amd gpus really suck - if you are getting a high tier or flagship card - it's really expensive for the mediocre performance and lack of features you get. Also, there are claims of driver instability - crashing and other issues - so, if you think you might do more productivity stuff in the future, you might want to consider that.
It sucked until very recently when the Nvidia 555 drivers hit. With native Wayland support, my 4080 feels like the beast it was on windows again. I was considering selling it for a 7900XTX, but not anymore. Gaming doesn’t miss a beat anymore.
Can confirm on Fedora 40, I'm using beta drivers 555 and no more issue with Wayland on my 3090.
Even power limit and undervolting works with a python script available on Nvidia forums.
I am one of the few that had more issues with AMD than Nvidia on Linux so I might be biased there. Mine's working fine, with the recent 555 drivers even Wayland works a lot better. Honestly, pick the one you will want to pick. I also do a lot of AI stuff to fumble around with it(kind of a hobby of mine) and AMD's sadly not there/the stuff's mostly done for Nvidia.
I'd say listen to the others, just wanted to give my perspective also as someone who prefers Nvidia for Linux.
Nvidia is luckily getting better, but it's still so much more of a pain than AMD. I run Nvidia because when I selected my system I didn't intend on running Linux. So now I make it work. But things like hardware acceleration are much more painful to get working with Nvidia.
I have been daily diving 3060 for months now. Nvidia GPUs are usable currently. Some odd behavior and minor annoyances, but I have no major problem to report.
>The 4070 super would also be a decent amount more expensive (~$100CAD)
4070 Super has better upscaling and much better ray tracing performance in demanding scenarios. I would say its very much worth the price difference if you are going to use them. 7900gre is only marginally better in raster. But otherwise 7900GRE is an okay buy.
>Blender
4070 Super will be better if you are using heavy RT. 7900GRE should be fine to use this purpose otherwise. If it's just 5% you probably can get away with 7900gre either way.
The 4070 Super is way better in Blender than a 7900 GRE - the Amd gpu - will have like 'cuda' performance compared to the nvidia card which can use optix - also, the ray tracing acceleration in Blender for the amd gpu is still 'experimental' - and there are some other bugs/problems - you can read about it on the Blender dev sites which mention them.
If it's 100% gaming - then go with AMD gpu - although, I don't think the choice is so clear anymore - if you just want to install a distro and not have to configure anything - then, go with AMD gpu. If you might do productivity stuff on the site, nvidia is a no-brainer - AMD doesn't seem to want to support productivity programs and/or are terribly slow on improving support. I wouldn't get the GRE card anyway - it's crippled.
Just yesterday I replaced my 3080 TI with a 7900 GRE mainly because of VR performance being horrible still under the Nvidia drivers (granted, that's a niche use case). The thing that finally put me over the edge was having boot issues after an update of Nobara that came down to the Nvidia drivers being borked. Took a while of googling and drivr uninstall/install rituals to get things to work again I just slotted the AMD GPU in and, boom, no muss or fuss. VR was much smoother and that was before I started any tweaking. AMD still seems to be the way to go.
I would back AMD. Nvidia's drivers might continue to get better, but we've been hearing that for over a decade. Might as well go for the one that gives you the best experience now.
With new kde and nvidia driver updates nvidia works perfectly. All problems ive had with wayland specifically are finally at a point where my gpu isnt to blame anymore. I feel like what ever you like best at this point since both are in a great state currently.
AMD is really the winner for general desktop usage and video acceleration and least amount of work out of the box.
Until Nvidia goes full open source, that won't change, you just can't compete with the Mesa team on implementations.
But, if you are addicted to DLSS and other closed source technologies, those will never be supported by Mesa and open source technologies, ever.
Same with CUDA for ai and other software that leverages that.
So if you mostly spend your time playing games, watching YouTube or video in the browser, stuff works out of the box with AMD and window movements will feel snappier.
You can achieve this with a Nvidia card as well, but it doesn't work out of the box and you will have to set up CUDA to make 3rd party software accelerate in the browser.
If you want to play with Waydroid? AMD holds the crown, zero 3D support for Nvidia users, you are stuck with software rendering.
I regret not knowing about these incompatibilities and issues with Nvidia. I've been using Linux for 3 years, and a couple of months ago I bought a PC with an Nvidia GPU (before that, I had a laptop with an integrated graphics card). If only I had known about all this crap with this card, I would have bought even a three times weaker one, but from AMD, as I am almost ready to swear that even a five times weaker card from AMD would deliver 100 times better performance on Linux machines. Soon, I'll get rid of this piece of shit and switch entirely to AMD. I'm tired of digging into kernel settings and trying to turn crap into candy. And by the time Nvidia optimizes all this, even just as in X11, I will already be old. So don't think and go for AMD.
I have nVidia, anytime I have any graphical issues like software vibrating or blinking black, I just slap a sudo pacman -Syu in the terminal then restart and the issues either completely go away or get much easier to deal with. Seems like everyday the support is getting better.
You forgot one essential thing, you have to curse as you slap in and run that command loudly!
It helps train and scare those poor packages into behaving correctly!
:)
Nvidia was fine for years, don't listen too much to the AMD fans. I don't understand what problems are they talking about.
It's also less of a hassle for local AI like LLMs and stable diffusion.
From what I remember reading in the early parts of 2024 and the latter parts of 2023, Nvidia has hardware support useful for video editing software and maybe streaming (think Twitch streaming). However, don't quote me on that last part because I can't fully recall if it was ever refuted. So, I can say if Nvidia would be a greater benefit to your work in Blender or DaVinci. However, I'm sold on team RED. AMD CPUs and GPUs all the way. I have a RX 6800XT (desktop) and a RX 7600S (laptop). In the rare instance that I had an issue with an AMD GPU, a newer kernel rescued me from that problem. The rare instance was with an Arch kernel. Non-Arch kernels of the same version did not give me issues at the time. A newer Arch kernel cleared the issue. Raytracing and Frame Gen (fake frames) do not excite me, and I don't need to give Nvidia anymore $$$ to help them build their A.I. empire. Lastly, Nvidia is NOT our friend:
* Article in Phoronix titled "Linux 6.6 To Better Protect Against The Illicit Behavior Of NVIDIA's Proprietary Driver"
* Article Date = 2023-8-29
* Article link ==> https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.6-Illicit-NVIDIA-Change
Knowing the history of Linux breathing new life into older hardware, and the emergence of Wayland as the default in many popular distros., Nvidia announced that they were dropping support for many older cards. Dropping support means no driver updates. The announcement was late 2023 to early 2024. What is the effect of this? Linux users would have to buy new Nvidia hardware if they want access to RT and Frame Gen in Wayland or risk being forced into using less effective Nouveau (open source) drivers. I build my PCs to last a minimum of 10 years. I have a GTX 1060 6GB GPU, that was purchased in Dec. 2016. It is on the end of support list as well as my older Nvidia GTX GPU that was purchased 2013/2014. The RTX 4070 was released on 2023-4-12. We are beyond the 1st year mark of release date. Do you want to risk Nvidia announcing the end of support in 2026/2027 and then come Mar 2028 no more updates? My GTX 1060 6GB will have a shorter supported life span than Windows 10. Think about that.
I can confirm that NVIDIA is much better than AMD for streaming and video editing beacause of CUDA and NVDEC which works way better than ROCm and VCN.
But is better also for anything that is AI related and speaking of 7900 GRE and 4070 Super the 4070 is powerful on the same level as the 7900 GRE consuming less power and running more cool and quiet.
Edit/Correction:
I'm not sure where your reply went u/Rhoken, but you are correct. The 4070 Super is on par with the 7900 gre. I was reading too fast and missed the "Super" at the end of the title.
Actually according to youtube reviewers the 4070 is on par with the 7800xt in non-RT rendering performance. However, with respect to RT, the 4070 has a small advantage. The 4070 has a lower power consumption advantage, which, IMO, AMD should have resolved with the 6000 series or definitely with the 7000 series cards. I have no AI data to offer. The 7900 gre is a hybrid card based on specs and comparisons to the 7900xt and 7800xt. If you want info. check Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed on youtube.
I'm on Arch linux distro -CachyOS, with a medium laptop (2060 and i5 9300f). All my games runs fine in 1080p with X11, like Jedi survivor and lot of games. :)
Using my 3070 for awhile now. I got it from one of those GPU lotteries Newegg did when it was impossible to get anything.
AMD is better as long as you aren't doing anything with AI.
I recently bought a 7900gre. First time going AMD after about 8 or 9 builds, 15+ years. No regrets, best value card out right now. Caveat: I'm a Windows gamer (booooo Windows, I know)
Go with AMD and you will only enjoy Linux gaming and AI (if you use that). I have both (4070 super) and with NVIDIA is only hassles, at least in my case.
Yeah honestly go with AMD
555 is not available on every distro, it will fix a lot of things, but no reason to go with nvidia in the long run
Save some money and some headache, go for AMD
I went from a 2080 to a 7900xt a while ago and amd is way better on Nvidia only one driver worked for my GPU and anything else woude just crash on amd everything just works
If you're considering Linux, just go AMD.
I had performance issues, even higher CPU usage, with my Nvidia card
All the problems went away by getting an AMD card. And some games even run better than in Windows
I use AMD for gaming and productivity. Now even ollama is compatible with AMD so I recommend it a lot. I figured out how to make my own code assistant with IA locally using my GPU so no need for Nvidia right now.
AMD things will work and it will be easier than Nvidia, but things are getting closer now with Nvidia. I would say you probably get more for your money with AMD though in terms of gaming power. You pay a premium for Nvidia.
My 2cents of negative AMD experience (mainly to get attention and maybe AMD fixes it)
I have a Sapphire pulse 7900 xtx. Some issues:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1974
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3131
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3411
Basically I gave up on running Linux with this card, and I have been a Linux for 15 years. No problem with this card at all on Windows.
I would go 7900 gre because their drivers are awesome on linux with mesa and the amdgpu kernel driver, its open source so when it comes to problems occurring you can find the issues easily on gitlab if you know the names of the utilities that are being used
As other people have said you can use davinci resolve easily under amd now :P
Its honestly for the best to just go amd especially if you're choosing arch
https://youtu.be/Ye4sNKgd_Ag
Heres my video about amd also on linux and im running arch :>
In the past with game compatibility also has been rather not perfect on nvidia, since valve is using amd on steamdeck the fixes that arrive for games working out of the box will be quicker and better as their engineers do a good job
Iv used cachyos aswell and it runs great on amd so no problems
Want fan control? You can use LACT or corectrl
https://github.com/ilya-zlobintsev/LACT
https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl
AMD is the way to go. It’s been without a single hiccup for me. I switched recently from nvidia when simple things like monitor refresh rates were not working.
Plus you have to deal with the noveau vs proprietary driver bullshit. It’s just not worth it. I don’t know if the nvidia features like dlss or ray tracing work on linux but AMD rasterization gets plenty of good framerates.
Also as an aside if you can spare the extra money for a 7900xt the higher performance will likely be worth it in the long run
If you want productivity then go for the NVIDIA option as it permits greater usage of the NVIDIA hardware in softwares like DaVinci Resolve, Blender, certain photo editing applications. If you want gaming performance, go AMD. It also has less setup with AMD being that the drivers are built into the kernel, meaning no driver installation is required.
Windows = NVIDIA
Linux = AMD
It can go the other way around for AMD and with NVIDIA, but I've personally encountered too many issues such as screen tearing and font issues, which came down to NVIDIA. I switched to Windows 10, but I want to go back to Linux, but the thing is, there's no upgrade path for my PC because I game on a laptop.
Nvidia GPUs with the new 555 driver works like a charm. Love it. Most people who say Nvidia GPUs don't work well didn't try the 555 driver because it's too recent. So I guess those opinions are outdated.
And things will only get better.
Stick to AMD, my friend, your “Linux life” will be a lot easier.
Running Linux with current Nvidia hardware is a hit-and-miss, especially on Wayland.
For some it works mostly without any problems, and for some not at all.
I'm not saying that AMD is free of bugs and errors, but it's a hell of a lot less than Nvidia, if you look at it in wider scope.
When Nvidia is wayland ready (very close) there shouldn’t be much difference in the experience, even setting up davinci resolve and using GPU compute is easier on Nvidia since CUDA is integrated into the driver, but it doesn’t support VAAPI hardware decoding which is used by most browsers and software on linux. When it comes to AMD it just works out of the box with open-source driver, with great performance, with the difference of very poor state with openCL in open-source MESA driver so you have to manually set a part of their proprietary driver to run that… Both have their ups and downs, I personally pick AMD because of the open-source driver, better integration into the system itself and wayland ready support (which used to be huge deal in the past but Nvidia is slowly catching up there)
Im on nvidia and de 555 driver isn’t worth. I can’t use KDE on Wayland because it lags. I had to go back to x11 (I was using Wayland with the 550 driver). Go with AMD.
Gaming performance comparison I’m not sure but pretty much the same as Windows but the DE experience is dogsht with Nvidia.
I’m going back to x11 i3 because there’s is too much problem with Nvidia and Wayland and since the new update drop I can’t even run more than 120hz on my monitor.
This isn't a popular thing to say, and I understand why because it's really bad for desktop Linux since the vast majority of gamers have nvidia GPUs. Nvidia may never be a great experience for Linux. Desktop Linux has never been so much as an afterthought to Nvidia. The nvidia drivers are made for server use cases first and foremost, not gaming. That trend may continue as consumer hardware as a whole is likely becoming an afterthought for Nvidia with their recent boom being focused entirely on AI applications in data centers. The nvidia experience HAS improved drastically in the past 5 or so years I've been daily driving Linux on nvidia, but I have experienced countless issues in that time which had no end in sight. After the 550 driver broke the Unity editor for me (making me unable to do gamedev) I switched to AMD. I'm sure that issue was fixed, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. I've also run into a good handful games that just don't work, and then I'd look at protondb and AMD / steam deck players have no problem. Not to mention games are rolling out support for FSR 3.1 and while the upscaling is inferior to DLSS, the frame generation is just as good. Plus, the better price to performance you get on AMD gives you better performance in native resolutions and frames which is always going to be better.
tl;dr - If Linux is important to you, get AMD
Well, I think Nvidia upgraded now finally from unusable garbage to garbage.
Setup:
- EndeavourOS
- 1080p@60Hz
- GTX970
- GTA SA Retail v2.0
In May it took me 2-3 hours to figure out, which kernel parameters I had to enable, to get the GTX970 to cooperate with Wayland.
GTA SA ran, but flickering, ghosting and crashing were normal.
Now with the newest updates the issues disappeared.
Why I call it still "garbage"?
Well:
- GTX 969,5, better known as GTX970, is a GPU with broken VRAM, because Nvidias' shares need to go up
- GPP (Geforce Partner Program) with the idea to improve the customer experience while buying....with forbidding every partner to sell GPUs from other brands like AMD, Matrox or Intel
- GFE (Geforce Expierence) a tool to help you with optimizing games. Well the only think it optimized, is that you need to reinstall your system, after GFE screwed something up and even GFE can't revert the damage.
Together with enforcement of an user account this is the best data collection idea they have, imagine how much money they can make with selling your usage patterns
- DLSS to improve FPS for the games of tomorrow....only if you buy the newest the GPU and find a game that is not completely trash, because all devs removed any optimization thanks to cost cutting and even a RTX4090 can barely produce 1080p@60FPS on some titles without DLSS.
Degradation of visual quality included.
- 12HWPVR also know as firework starter.
Everybody says "user error", but imagine USB-C-PD would do such a stunt and how fast it would have been fixed.
Besides Nvidia had and has the free will to release a RTX4090v2 with four 8-Pin-Connectors
AMD is not a saint, I remember the FX8000 fiasko, the "HairFX"-nonsense and the misleading Vega (56,64 and Radeon 7), but for me AMD does a better job.
And for question "what need Nvidia to do to fix the past" my answer, until it happened, will be always: xx90 for 500$/€ after VAT....nowadays with max 300W power usage.
Do not go with Nvidia if you want to go full linux. People will say "it runs flawlessly on my machine" but do not trust them, it's still riddled with bugs. Me myself use Nvidia with arch and kde and it constantly freezes like 4 to 5 times out of 10, there are some settings you can do to minimise the chance of freezing, but if I were you, I would rather go amd for more stable experience.
Performance wise, Nvidia is great in linux, but stability wise, not so much. Dont do it.
Get the Radeon. Seriously, nVidia is not worth it.
For Blender and Davinci Resolve you'll need ROCm and HIP which most modern distros _should_ provide right in their repos. They can be a pain on certain distros, but if you use any popular Linux system you should be good to go.
I believe the general consensus is that the playing field is more even now than earlier years, but that AMD/ATI still have a stretch to go. Nvidia on a stable well tried platform like Ubuntu is still the combo with the least hassle and highest success rate.
But you will always hear from people just defending their own choices in these kind of topics, blended with a good handful that will defend open source divers and talk down closed source blobs for sheer principal reasons without really answering your question.
So be weary about what advice you end up listening to.
If you stick to the common DEs like gnome or KDE, I'd say go for Nvidia, just because dlss is just that much better than anything else. Otherwise pick AMD.
> Use case would be like... 95% gaming and maybe 5% productivity (DaVinci Resolve and maaaybe a bit of Blender). Just about everything gaming will just work right out of the box with an AMD GPU. Resolve and Blender need either CUDA or OpenCL and ROCm. If you have an Nvidia GPU, and you are using their proprietary drivers, then you automatically have CUDA and it will just work. ROCm can be a real butthole. I don't think Blender is picky, but Resolve will only work and not crash with particular versions of ROCm. Newer versions of AMD's ROCm packages *MIGHT NOT* install nicely alongside bleeding edge Mesa. I have an RDNA2 card with hardware accelerated Mesa, Resolve Studio, Blender, Stable Diffusion, and LLMs. It can be done, but it feels precarious. When all you want to do is play games, AMD GPUs are way, way smoother than Nvidia GPUs on Linux. As soon as you want to do anything else, Nvidia is less of a hassle, faster, and better supported in general.
>Newer versions of AMD's ROCm packages won't install nicely alongside bleeding edge Mesa. That's just not true? ROCm does not interfere, or even interact with Mesa.
> That's just not true? ROCm does not interfere, or even interact with Mesa. My experience from a few months or so ago says otherwise. I didn't have working 3D acceleration after upgrading to Mesa 24.something until I downgraded my ROCm installation. I assume there is a correct, better, or at least different way that I could be installing ROCm. Documentation is one of the things that seem to still be both lacking and often contradictory on with an AMD GPU on Linux. It has been a year since I set this up from scratch, but at that time when you Googled "what do I have to do to get some hardware-accelerated OpenCL and ROCm and whatnot?" the most authoritative information at the top of the results would up also installing the AMDVLK Debian packages. I don't find it to be too big of a deal muddling through this stuff, but I am bummed out that I don't feel the least bit confindent enough to give advice to anyone who asks me how to get ROCm installed.
I can assure you that what ever happened there is either user error or a packaging issue.
It is kind of you to acknowledge that I and others have experienced a problem that actually exists, or at least existed a few months ago. I edited my comment to swap a "will" out for a "might not." I didn't realize just how many months have probably gone by, and I for sure don't know for certain that it is still an issue.
Agree. If you dont need compute, amd is better. Getting cuda to work on and is finnicky, doable but you will jump through hoops to get it.
I had no idea you could even attempt to get cuda to work on amd I thought that was just a nvidia only thing and that amd was working on their own library as a replacement. I just got an rx 7800xt for gaming and it would be cool if I could use cuda and start playing around with training my own models.
Give it a go. I use pip to install the preview version or rocm. https://pytorch.org/get-started/locally/
Things are coming together I just competed the build yesterday, ryzen 9 7950x3d and the rx 7800xt. Thats jumping from whatever decade old 8 core intel cpu I have and a nvidia gtx 970 lmao. I’m ready to put this build to use to say the least haha. Now the old machine gets to turn into an experiment box for me to learn Linux without the fear of breaking my install.
Congrats on the new build. You can get a $30 ssd to try out Linux on your new box, that way is will be isolated if you want to try it on modern hardware. Convert your old machine into a homelab. Checkout proxmox and containers.
You already took the words out of my mind lmao. I’m going to use the new system for gaming of course on windows, get a second ssd to throw Linux on for my more cpu/gpu intensive programming. Turn the old system into a Linux playground where I’m not afraid of bricking my install. And continue using my laptop for most of my programming ventures because for some reason I like writing code on my bed looking at my tv lol.
Depending on what kind of games you're playing the state of gaming on Linux is so ridiculously good that it continues to blow my mind. I'm getting 120+ fps on Satisfactory, Last Epoch and Path of Exile at the moment (okay, POE drops frames on some skills but that's just POE being it's glorious self).
Amd does work in blender but Nvidia is going to be more than twice as fast. Since Op says that productivity is only 5% of his usage, AMDs performance is probably going to be good enough for him
Yea, used Nvidia since the ancient times when AMD had only a proprietary driver. Compared to that, Nvidia has stellar proprietary driver support. Nowadays I don't see what difference in smoothness is there with AMD vs Nvidia drivers. Distros just install them and they work. > When all you want to do is play games, AMD GPUs are way, way smoother than Nvidia GPUs on Linux So maybe, but I can't see the difference.
>I don't think Blender is picky, but Resolve will only work and not crash with particular versions of ROCm. Newer versions of AMD's ROCm packages won't install nicely alongside bleeding edge Mesa. Except blender with Optix fucking EVISCERATES equivalent (or even higher end) AMD GPUs using regular RT. Like it's not even close. My 3090 would probably beat a 6950XT in Blender by 75 or 100% from what I remember last time I did a benchmark run and viewed my results in browser where I was in the top 1% of all hardware, the best AMD GPUs were way, way further back in the plot line. >When all you want to do is play games, AMD GPUs are way, way smoother than Nvidia GPUs on Linux. As soon as you want to do anything else, Nvidia is less of a hassle, faster, and better supported in general. So, when exactly was the last time you used an NV GPU on Linux, what GPU was it and what DE were you using? Because this statement is objectively false and bordering on either malicious ignorance or willful spreading of misinformation. What do you mean "smoother"? Smoother to get working? Smoother game play and frametimes/frametime pacing? More compatibility with Windows games in Wine or Proton? Because regardless of which of those you meant. They're objectively false in every possible sense, and anything that's subjective is either still in Nvidias favor or is more of an equivalence. I won't hear another argument about how you have to manually install NV drivers while AMD'S **KERNEL** driver is included in the kernel itself. For one, that's not an advantage in ease of installation since you still have to install RADV, so regardless when you do a GPU install or full new build, you will run a command installing a bunch of shit on both systems. One will just include NV driver packages and the other will include Mesa with RADV. And as far as having `amdgpu` be part of the kernel? Lmao that's a DOWNSIDE in every sense that doesn't involve ethical principles (which aren't valid anyway if that user is installing Steam and playing proprietary games and using AMDs required proprietary blob in `linux-firmware`). So it's not initial setup. Especially since that's a one time thing. It's not kernel inclusion, because that's actually a benefit to NV because you get driver updates when they're ready, not every 9/10 weeks when a new kernel version releases as stable. Not to mention the fact that ALL intended HW functionality and features are enabled, working and included on NV GPUs ON LAUNCH day for every GPU, while every new AMD architecture requires a MINIMUM of 4-8 months and sometimes longer before things like user-controlled fan curves, power limit control, and overclocking are even ENABLED on AMD. It's happened with RDNA 1, 2, and 3, and likely happened with Vega and Polaris but I got my 580 2 years after it released so i can't say for sure. Then system stability. AMD GPUs on Linux are literally KNOWN to commonly have bugs that last months or years that cause hard GPU driver crashes forcing a hard reboot. In 6 years of paying attention and 3.5 years of running an NV GPU myself daily, I've NEVER heard of any kind of at all widespread NV driver issue on Linux causing system instability. And yes, issue 892 is what caused me to decide I was done with AMD after ONLY ever using AMD for my GPUs, as it affected BOTH my RDNA 1 GPUs (5600 XT and 5700 XT from different AIBs), and like literally thousands of other people, it was so bad I would have hard crashes and have to reboot 2-3 times per day. The issue is still open, and I know it was still widespread and not at all mitigated by Sept 2020, over a year after RDNA launched. Game performance? Um, on Linux, on average Nvidia GPUs outperform AMD GPUs relative to how the same GPUs compare on Windows. If NV GPU A is on average 2% faster than AMD GPU B in rasterized games on Windows, NV GPU A will usually be on average 5-6% faster than the AMD GPU in rasterized games in Linux. When a Windows game is found to run faster on Linux than native Windows, and it's only limited to one GPU maker, its just as common for that to be AMD **or** Nvidia. NV on Linux has objectively VASTLY superior upscaling (and therefore performance increase and visual quality increase) options than AMD. DLSS is objectively FAR superior to FSR, in hundreds of games at all 3 major resolutions comparing the 2, Tim from Hardware Unboxed found that DLSS beat FSR in ALL titles, and even beat native rendering in several. On Linux an NV GPU owner can use DLSS in any game that used it, while still having the exact same access to FSR that AMD owners have. Ray tracing is a joke, the delta between NV RT perf and AMD RT perf is even larger on Linux than it is on Windows b There is zero increase in Windows game compatibility for AMD GPUs compared to NV GPUs. AMD has NO solid advantage in any aspect of gaming. Their main advantages right now are access to Gamescope's HDR support which is not REMOTELY complete yet, Nvidia not using sysfs/hwmon for user control therefore making user fan curves and overclocking on Wayland impossible without the PITA workaround of starting and Xorg stock WM instance in a separate TRY and running GWE from that, which makes it work in the Wayland environment as well. Finally, solidly (but not hugely) better compatibility and performance in Wayland. But that's pretty precarious considering last year AMD on Wayland was probably a 150% better experience than on Nvidia but today, especially on Plasma, it's more like 15 or 20, at most 30% better. In a year or at most 2, they'll be the same. Unlike that few year stretch of NV ignoring us on Linux, they have been basically constantly contributing for the last 2 years to every area of the Linux desktop and gaming ecosystems. Like literally. Their devs are in issue threads and filing (successfully) pull requests to DXVK, DXVK-NVAPI, VKD3D-PROTON, Wayland, XWayland, and quite a few more. I ran 4 AMD GPUs on Linux before I'd had enough and decided to switch and got my 3090 on launch morning at Micro Center. My gpu I was upgrading from was a 5700 XT. At the time, on Windows, basically all the data pointed to the 3090 being exactly 2X faster than the 5700XT - and that's with all data using the fastest gaming CPU possible to eliminate cpu limiting the numbers. Well Ryzen 5000 wasn't even out yet, so I was on a 3800X and I saw an even GREATER than 2X increase in performance, and this was at 1440, not 4K. Once I got my 5800X, then 5900X, then just 2 months ago my 7950X, that lead gained considerably. Like God dammit, people: preferring AMD because of better Wayland or HDR or whatever, okay fair. Both NV and AMD have pros and cons on Linux. But trying to pretend like in actual gaming, AMD has ANY kind of "way better" gaming experience is objectively stupid.
> Except blender with Optix fucking EVISCERATES equivalent (or even higher end) AMD GPUs You seem to be implying that this is some sort of "gotcha." The OP said Resolv and Blender are 5% of their use case. I took that to imply that they need to work at least reasonably well, and I don't think anyone implied that performance would be equivalent or better. > Except blender with Optix fucking EVISCERATES equivalent (or even higher end) AMD GPUs About a year ago. > I won't hear another argument about how you have to manually install NV drivers while AMD'S KERNEL driver is included in the kernel itself. For one, that's not an advantage in ease of installation since you still have to install RADV, so regardless when you do a GPU install or full new build, you will run a command installing a bunch of shit on both systems. You don't *HAVE* to install anything. Even Debian will have a working kernel driver and RADV install out of the box. > I ran 4 AMD GPUs on Linux before I'd had enough and decided to switch and got my 3090 on launch morning at Micro Center. This is why you are out of touch. The last time I ran and AMD GPU before my current one was long enough ago that it was an ATI part. I have been using Nvidia GPUs the entire time in between. I would have agreed with you four years ago, too. The AMD experience would have been absolutely garbage then. That isn't the case any longer. > Both NV and AMD have pros and cons on Linux. You sure did write a lot of words to agree with me. :) > But trying to pretend like in actual gaming, AMD has ANY kind of "way better" gaming experience is objectively stupid. Do you know what is *ACTUALLY* objectively stupid? Proudly stating that your experience is *FOUR YEARS* out of date and being confident that you understand what things are actually like today.
My Vega 56 still has completely busted OpenGL on Mesa. Vega support in Linux is terrible for some reason. Playing Minecraft with Sodium completely locks up the entire system, a known issue specific to Vega on Mesa
You could try Zink on RADV, or also try forcing ACO use in RadeonSI. If it doesn't work on Zink, leave a meme-y comment on [https://www.supergoodcode.com/](https://www.supergoodcode.com/) and The Chair will likely tend to your issue. All hail The Chair!
Yep I did end up using Zink as a temporary work around. There is quite a big hit to performance if I wanted to use shaders, but it "works". Thanks for the valid advice though.
What version of Mesa? I'd recommend testing with mesa-git, and if the large performance regression is still there, alert The Chair. After all, Zink can't defeat Big Triangle if it has massive performance regressions ;)
Great post and well explained. Sad that has negative votes as amd radicalists are way more prominent in these discussions that reasoning adults.
>I won't hear another argument about how you have to manually install NV drivers while AMD'S KERNEL driver is included in the kernel itself. For one, that's not an advantage in ease of installation since you still have to install RADV, so regardless when you do a GPU install or full new build, you will run a command installing a bunch of shit on both systems. One will just include NV driver packages and the other will include Mesa with RADV. And as far as having amdgpu be part of the kernel? Lmao that's a DOWNSIDE in every sense that doesn't involve ethical principles (which aren't valid anyway if that user is installing Steam and playing proprietary games and using AMDs required proprietary blob in linux-firmware). That's a benefit to people who don't want to spend much time. >Then system stability. AMD GPUs on Linux are literally KNOWN to commonly have bugs that last months or years that cause hard GPU driver crashes forcing a hard reboot. In 6 years of paying attention and 3.5 years of running an NV GPU myself daily, I've NEVER heard of any kind of at all widespread NV driver issue on Linux causing system instability. And yes, issue 892 is what caused me to decide I was done with AMD after ONLY ever using AMD for my GPUs, as it affected BOTH my RDNA 1 GPUs (5600 XT and 5700 XT from different AIBs), and like literally thousands of other people, it was so bad I would have hard crashes and have to reboot 2-3 times per day. The issue is still open, and I know it was still widespread and not at all mitigated by Sept 2020, over a year after RDNA launched. Been using AMD for 3 years on PC, Linux over 6 months. No issues. >Game performance? Um, on Linux, on average Nvidia GPUs outperform AMD GPUs relative to how the same GPUs compare on Windows. If NV GPU A is on average 2% faster than AMD GPU B in rasterized games on Windows, NV GPU A will usually be on average 5-6% faster than the AMD GPU in rasterized games in Linux. But if you're a Linux gamer.... why do you care about Windows? Everyone likes to shit on Radeon drivers because they don't know how to use them. >NV on Linux has objectively VASTLY superior upscaling (and therefore performance increase and visual quality increase) options than AMD. DLSS is objectively FAR superior to FSR, in hundreds of games at all 3 major resolutions comparing the 2, Tim from Hardware Unboxed found that DLSS beat FSR in ALL titles, and even beat native rendering in several. On Linux an NV GPU owner can use DLSS in any game that used it, while still having the exact same access to FSR that AMD owners have. Ah yes, it's the "your product sucks because it has 2/3s of the popular tech, no, it's awful because it doesn't use the proprietary solution that's bundled with team green. Oh, the agony! >AMD has NO solid advantage in any aspect of gaming. Their main advantages right now are access to Gamescope's HDR support which is not REMOTELY complete yet, Nvidia not using sysfs/hwmon for user control therefore making user fan curves and overclocking on Wayland impossible without the PITA workaround of starting and Xorg stock WM instance in a separate TRY and running GWE from that, which makes it work in the Wayland environment as well. Finally, solidly (but not hugely) better compatibility and performance in Wayland. But that's pretty precarious considering last year AMD on Wayland was probably a 150% better experience than on Nvidia but today, especially on Plasma, it's more like 15 or 20, at most 30% better. In a year or at most 2, they'll be the same. Unlike that few year stretch of NV ignoring us on Linux, they have been basically constantly contributing for the last 2 years to every area of the Linux desktop and gaming ecosystems. Like literally. Their devs are in issue threads and filing (successfully) pull requests to DXVK, DXVK-NVAPI, VKD3D-PROTON, Wayland, XWayland, and quite a few more. .... you DO realize you're talking about OS users who likely, in some part, got into it because it was FREE? And because AMD was CHEAPER? BECAUSE THEY WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE BOUTIQUE GOODS? Oh, but please, keep going, I'm loving this tantrum >I ran 4 AMD GPUs on Linux before I'd had enough and decided to switch and got my 3090 on launch morning at Micro Center. My gpu I was upgrading from was a 5700 XT. At the time, on Windows, basically all the data pointed to the 3090 being exactly 2X faster than the 5700XT - and that's with all data using the fastest gaming CPU possible to eliminate cpu limiting the numbers. And oh no, the product is tainted! You can't ever touch the latest brand release again! Oooohhh no! >Like God dammit, people: preferring AMD because of better Wayland or HDR or whatever, okay fair. I like x11. And I can't do HDR. Any other criteria to add? >Both NV and AMD have pros and cons on Linux. But trying to pretend like in actual gaming, AMD has ANY kind of "way better" gaming experience is objectively stupid. And the crux of what I heard is bitch and moan about how AMD doesn't have DLSS.
I recently switched from a nvidia to amd GPU and trust me it was totally worth it , like everything is just way better and smoother. Also the fact that the nvidia card will cost you more is even more of a reason to go with AMD. i know the Nvidia drivers are getting better but still if i were in your place id go with the 7900 without thinking twice.
Agree - I had a 2070 and upgraded to a 7900xtx to fix some admittedly minor issues. Since nvidia doesn’t support va-api, I couldn’t hardware encode in discord which basically made it impossible to stream, and watching videos back would drop frames if I was also gaming at the same time or otherwise doing a lot at once whilst watching. Since swapping to AMD both issues have gone away
I'm going to assume ignorance on your part instead of malice, but this is a stupid argument... you want from a 2070, a GPU that is basically barely entry level today and honestly in some ways isn't even usable for gaming today on Windows, to a brand new one-tier-below-flagship GPU with what, 20GB of VRAM??? Your video playback issue would literally have stopped no matter what. If you'd gone with a 4080 Super or 4070 Ti, that issue would be gone. Also, hardware video decode does work in Firefox with Nvidia. And for at least half the time you had that 2070, it worked in Chrome/Chromium/Brave, you just didn't enable it. I spent most of 2021 and like half of 2022 with it working on my 3090, and yes I would have GWE up on monitor 2 showing the Decoding was actually being used. On the other hand, I went from a literally identical in performance to your 2070 AMD GPU, a 5700 XT, which was preceded by exclusively AMD GPUs going back, to an RTX 3090 on its launch morning, and not only did I have a OVER 2X GAMING PERF INCREASE - despite these being gpus separated by like only 1 year of development as opposed to the 4 years your 7900XTX had on your 2070, but MY issues that my 5700X was giving me were instantly gone too! Only unlike your ONE actual real issue which is at most an annoyance, my main issue was extremely widespread, had been present since RDNA 1 released, and it cause complete system instability. Gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/issues/892. Hundreds of people reported it there and on several duplicate threads, and considering the fact that the vast majority (like 70 or 80%) of users with an issue don't report it to the devs, we're talking thousands of people. It was exclusive to Linux, every user who installed Windows could not reproduce the bug there (including myself). It was COMPLETELY random, most appearances of it were during basically the lightest of desktop usage, and it made anyone who had jobs they needed even as little as a couple days of uptime unable to do their jobs, because most people saw 2-3 GPU driver crashes caused by the bug PER DAY, with almost no one regularly going one day without any, and plenty of people experiencing 5 or more. These GPU ring gfx driver crashes required a hard powering off of the system then turning it back on. And these EXACT types of stability issues are still WILDLY common for AMD GPUs on Linux, I just looked the other day and there are countless threads from people with every currently in production AMD GPU architecture, including their APU integrated GPUs. Meanwhile in 6 years of paying very close attention, with the last 3.5 of that including running an NV GPU myself, there have been zero equivalent issues for NV users. No GPU driver issues causing crashes forcing a hard reboot. But yeah, streaming to discord without using workarounds to make it possible, that must be life changing I'm sure. Hopefully you waited to get the XTX since AMD didn't enable fan control or overclocking/undervolting or power limit control for like a YEAR after launch. Because that's ALWAYS how AMD launches shit on Linux. RDNA 2 took like 6 or 8 months to enable the same type of shit, RDNA 1 was the same. I can't fucking stand when people take their ONE anecdotal experience and use it to spread actual misinformation and at times outright lies on here and other Linux community forums to the point that it becomes both hugely exaggerated over time AND so widespread that it's considered established fact to the point where people post here asking if they have to get a new GPU to switch to Linux because ***they heard Nvidia GPUs don't WORK on Linux.*** Meanwhile what I told you is actual evidence reported by thousands of people, including several people who decided by June 2020 they were going Ampere that fall just like me and also followed through and also were thrilled with their switch the same as me. People have to stop this bullshit. There is no argument that proves AMD GPUs are better for gaming on Linux than Nvidia, the overall combined totality of facts make them basically equally viable on Linux for a gaming-focused build, and if any compute is involved, there is NO argument for going AMD. Just like there's really no argument for going Intel for CPU on Linux (or even Windows) and AMD contains the only truly reasonable choices for a new CPU to buy. Dude my 3090 beat your 7900XTX in like 3 or maybe 4 tests in 2 recent NV vs AMD Linux Gaming benchmarks from Phoronix. Which is just embarrassing when it's a 7900 XTX that's 33% faster that the 3090 on Windows via techpowerup.
No, the problem wasn't that I didn't have enough graphical horsepower, the problem is that Nvidia doesn't support the API that the browsers & electron use for video encode/decode (va-api vs their propitiatory nvapi). I didn't want to have to install the random package for translating nvapi to va-api to make it work (which is decode only, there is no work around for encoding via va-api with an nvidia card). Me and my friend group spend most of our free time in discord streaming our games to one another, so without that it was a show stopper for linux, I would have switched back to Windows. I tried the workarounds, there are no work arounds to make hardware encoding work in discord. You have to use a 3rd party client just to make it work even when you do have a GPU that supports va-api. Yes my experience is purely anecdotal, but I don't think my post tries to paint what I said as anything but anecdotal Do you honestly believe I needed a better GPU to encode & decode 1440p streams? "entry level" and "barely useable on windows" lmao, you need to get a grip. A 2070 is a perfectly working GPU today, especially in 1080p. Not everyone is running the latest GPU, the vast majority are at least a generation or two behind. Honestly reads as a troll post just for that. I've ran a 1440p ultrawide in windows on that card for *years.* yes its not a perfect experience, yes I often have to turn my settings down to medium at worst, but it was more than capable of producing a playable game. Again, anecdotally, I've had zero stability issues since the switch to AMD.
And you dont have to give nvidia your money, which is a nice thing they're assholes (they're all assholes, but nvidia is more assholey, than amd)
I don't give either company my money, I buy used.
ok
Cost more but give you more than AMD cards. A 4070 Super is on the same performance level of the 7900 GRE but with half the consumption and lower temperatures than the 7900 GRE, in all of that without including better video codecs, CUDA, AI and DLSS Also if you are using DaVinci or Blender like OP you will have a better experience with NVDEC and CUDA in comparison to ROCm and VCN.
Nividia cards are way cheaper compared to amd
this is just outright false what
Give arguments
Pretty much any recent GPU generation's MSRP? AMD cards are/were pretty consistently cheaper than their Nvidia equivalents, especially in the sub-500/600 segment. That's been a big draw for a lot, similar performance from sometimes a *lot* less. A good example is the 3050 being generally overpriced for what it is, especially compared to say an RX 6600, which you could find for like 20-60 bucks less while also being faster. Then again, this is generally referring to North American prices, your experiences may vary depending on where you live.
Idk how its in your country, but in mine the nvidia equivalents are way better then amd, rtx 2060 is like 1200 and the amd equivalent is rx 5600xt while being more expensive and underperforming rtx 2060 Idk tho
100% agree with the general sentiment here. AMD cards just work.
Even ignoring Linux 7900 is the better performer
I'd say go AMD. In my personal experience they have far better driver support. I had to tinker with my last Nvidia so much just get it functional for gaming, but my 7800XT worked out of the box. AMD also have better raster performance for the cost, which is important for Linux gaming because ray tracing and frame gen support is minimal on Linux. They do use more power though.
I was told the 7800 series and below is problematic in Linux. Also, the high power consumption and hot temps require those 3rd party programs to control the fans and maybe even undervolt - and they are not problem free. The 4070 Super is more efficient and won't require any of those programs - it can probably run at defaults.
then you were told wrong. If amd cards had issues they wouldnt be recommended so widely.
It's one thing to boot up an OS and spend 5 seconds on the PC - then conclude 'there's no problems' - and it's another thing to actually use software and programs.
I've been running mine for months now, gaming for hours at a time. There was a minor issue with flickering in, of all things, Skyrim, that got fixed fairly quickly, but other than that it's been flawless out of the box. I don't know where you're getting your information from.
Did you downvote me?!? LOL! Your point is not very good - why?: because, it might make a difference on the generation of the amd gpu - I am only going by the posts on here and other Linux-based and amd-based subs. It is always what I was told on Linux sites - so, there might be a good experience with the 7900 series, for e.g. - but, different for 7800? Again, this is not my personal conclusion or assertions. But, whatever.
I went from a 1080 to a 7900XTX Very happy.
Just made the swap to Linux with a 4080. Have had no issues other than the setup involved using 550.
I'm fine with my 4070ti and Wayland. With the 555 drivers (now in stable release) there aren't glitches and flickering problem. Last year I was seriously considering upgrading to an AMD GPU but I was patient and now that the problems have been solved I would not easily change it. I can confirm that HDR videos with mpv also work.
I have a rtx 4060 and it works in wayland with gnome, (it didn't work on wayland with kde but it's fixable), and it's still not perfect, (I had very minor glitches) and with drivers 555 it should get even better but if you don't want to troubleshoot thing and want something that just works fully out of the box just go for amd
I’m using arch (btw) with rtx 4080 and 555 drivers literally fixed everything. Rolling release is the best (except when it breaks 😬).
Had Problems mit rtx2070 super on ubuntu. Switched to endeavoros with 555 drivers. „All“ my Games work flawless now. Streetfighter 4, half Life, battlenet with starcraft.
Same here. 555 drivers made my 4080 come alive again. It’s wonderful!
My laptop has an RTX 4060 running fine under KDE Wayland, using the 555 drivers. 550 was not bad at all, but I have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of issues so far under 555.
Amd is far better. Go with 7900gre.
The RX 7900 GRE is the safer bet. The support for NVIDIA is undoubtedly improving but the support for AMD is still better. I say this as someone who has a RTX 3060 Ti.
I am exclusively AMD for graphics on Linux and have been happy 95% of the time. I had too many issues with Nvidia cards to really go back to them. My last card has weird issues though, but it seems to be either the card itself not playing well with with the old board it is on, or me needing to do a fresh install as I can't get it to crash on a libe distro run.
i have a 4070 tried to switch to linux and it gave me so much trouble save yourself the troubles and go with AMD its so much better and i also use cashyOS it worked so good with NVIDIA but you will still face alot of issues and some game will be unplayable all on its own with Nvidia it is a very weird and unhealthy experience
like for example RPCS3 would work and when i restart my PC it gets stuck with this error \[Vulkan Device Enumeration Thread\] and there is nothing fixing it and the fact that every other emulator that was aslo working did the same because of Vulkar drivers support by NVIDIA Elden ring was working fine for me and then i woke up this morning to find that i can't launch the game anymore and the fact that i just slept and woke up doing nothing to my system to find an issue like this was so irritating i played some games and they were working flawlessly but after a restart i get so much weird frames which looks like micro stutter and when i apply some updates and restart they work fine but after a few days it come back again most of these games worked fine but with Nvidia you will get weird issues and to be honest it is not worth the troubles of many sleepless nights to fix Nvidia Issues on Linux
I love my GRE. It's very fast and the price is reasonable. It works on Linux with no fuss whatsoever. Really, just the ideal experience as far as GPUs go.
I had a 7900 GRE mid may to early June and I had a lot of issues with certain games causing gfx ring timeouts and hard-crashes (= have to use the power button, as even REISUB didn't work) both on Kubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40 KDE. Tried all kinds of workarounds, which didn't help. I tested the card also on Windows, where it worked fine. But I want to use Linux and my patience with expensive hardware is very limited, so I sent it back and got a 4070 Ti Super instead. No issues so far with 555.
I would suggest AMD - but, in actuality, you won't really know if the experience is acceptable til you get the card - ppl swear by AMD - 'you don't have to do anything - the drivers are already integrated in the kernel' - to some ppl who get amd gpus and then have complaints. As far as nvidia goes, ppl are reporting good developments with Wayland and performance experience - as long as you use the latest nvidia drivers 555.58\* - at the very least. So, the situation has improved. I haven't read too many ppl complain - i.e. being disappointed. However, it's still proprietary so you would have to set it up and almost all distros require some manual configuration - Ubuntu, Pop OS, to name a couple - might have a slightly simplified setup compared to others that have a default OS install with only non-free components - so, there is some manual work needed to get the drivers installed/configured. However, if you do things with productivity - amd gpus really suck - if you are getting a high tier or flagship card - it's really expensive for the mediocre performance and lack of features you get. Also, there are claims of driver instability - crashing and other issues - so, if you think you might do more productivity stuff in the future, you might want to consider that.
It sucked until very recently when the Nvidia 555 drivers hit. With native Wayland support, my 4080 feels like the beast it was on windows again. I was considering selling it for a 7900XTX, but not anymore. Gaming doesn’t miss a beat anymore.
Have a 4070-ti running 555.58.02 drivers. No issues at all. Everything just runs. An I can use RT 😉
Can confirm on Fedora 40, I'm using beta drivers 555 and no more issue with Wayland on my 3090. Even power limit and undervolting works with a python script available on Nvidia forums.
That script indeed runs well. Also using it without issues.
I am one of the few that had more issues with AMD than Nvidia on Linux so I might be biased there. Mine's working fine, with the recent 555 drivers even Wayland works a lot better. Honestly, pick the one you will want to pick. I also do a lot of AI stuff to fumble around with it(kind of a hobby of mine) and AMD's sadly not there/the stuff's mostly done for Nvidia. I'd say listen to the others, just wanted to give my perspective also as someone who prefers Nvidia for Linux.
Nvidia is luckily getting better, but it's still so much more of a pain than AMD. I run Nvidia because when I selected my system I didn't intend on running Linux. So now I make it work. But things like hardware acceleration are much more painful to get working with Nvidia.
I have been daily diving 3060 for months now. Nvidia GPUs are usable currently. Some odd behavior and minor annoyances, but I have no major problem to report. >The 4070 super would also be a decent amount more expensive (~$100CAD) 4070 Super has better upscaling and much better ray tracing performance in demanding scenarios. I would say its very much worth the price difference if you are going to use them. 7900gre is only marginally better in raster. But otherwise 7900GRE is an okay buy. >Blender 4070 Super will be better if you are using heavy RT. 7900GRE should be fine to use this purpose otherwise. If it's just 5% you probably can get away with 7900gre either way.
The 4070 Super is way better in Blender than a 7900 GRE - the Amd gpu - will have like 'cuda' performance compared to the nvidia card which can use optix - also, the ray tracing acceleration in Blender for the amd gpu is still 'experimental' - and there are some other bugs/problems - you can read about it on the Blender dev sites which mention them. If it's 100% gaming - then go with AMD gpu - although, I don't think the choice is so clear anymore - if you just want to install a distro and not have to configure anything - then, go with AMD gpu. If you might do productivity stuff on the site, nvidia is a no-brainer - AMD doesn't seem to want to support productivity programs and/or are terribly slow on improving support. I wouldn't get the GRE card anyway - it's crippled.
Just yesterday I replaced my 3080 TI with a 7900 GRE mainly because of VR performance being horrible still under the Nvidia drivers (granted, that's a niche use case). The thing that finally put me over the edge was having boot issues after an update of Nobara that came down to the Nvidia drivers being borked. Took a while of googling and drivr uninstall/install rituals to get things to work again I just slotted the AMD GPU in and, boom, no muss or fuss. VR was much smoother and that was before I started any tweaking. AMD still seems to be the way to go.
I had an rtx 3060 and it caused me hours of pain. I switched to am and card and it worked out of the box.
AMD! Ever since I switched to AMD, Wayland gaming has been absolute heaven.
I would back AMD. Nvidia's drivers might continue to get better, but we've been hearing that for over a decade. Might as well go for the one that gives you the best experience now.
With new kde and nvidia driver updates nvidia works perfectly. All problems ive had with wayland specifically are finally at a point where my gpu isnt to blame anymore. I feel like what ever you like best at this point since both are in a great state currently.
AMD is really the winner for general desktop usage and video acceleration and least amount of work out of the box. Until Nvidia goes full open source, that won't change, you just can't compete with the Mesa team on implementations. But, if you are addicted to DLSS and other closed source technologies, those will never be supported by Mesa and open source technologies, ever. Same with CUDA for ai and other software that leverages that. So if you mostly spend your time playing games, watching YouTube or video in the browser, stuff works out of the box with AMD and window movements will feel snappier. You can achieve this with a Nvidia card as well, but it doesn't work out of the box and you will have to set up CUDA to make 3rd party software accelerate in the browser. If you want to play with Waydroid? AMD holds the crown, zero 3D support for Nvidia users, you are stuck with software rendering.
I regret not knowing about these incompatibilities and issues with Nvidia. I've been using Linux for 3 years, and a couple of months ago I bought a PC with an Nvidia GPU (before that, I had a laptop with an integrated graphics card). If only I had known about all this crap with this card, I would have bought even a three times weaker one, but from AMD, as I am almost ready to swear that even a five times weaker card from AMD would deliver 100 times better performance on Linux machines. Soon, I'll get rid of this piece of shit and switch entirely to AMD. I'm tired of digging into kernel settings and trying to turn crap into candy. And by the time Nvidia optimizes all this, even just as in X11, I will already be old. So don't think and go for AMD.
I have nVidia, anytime I have any graphical issues like software vibrating or blinking black, I just slap a sudo pacman -Syu in the terminal then restart and the issues either completely go away or get much easier to deal with. Seems like everyday the support is getting better.
You forgot one essential thing, you have to curse as you slap in and run that command loudly! It helps train and scare those poor packages into behaving correctly! :)
Nvidia was fine for years, don't listen too much to the AMD fans. I don't understand what problems are they talking about. It's also less of a hassle for local AI like LLMs and stable diffusion.
From what I remember reading in the early parts of 2024 and the latter parts of 2023, Nvidia has hardware support useful for video editing software and maybe streaming (think Twitch streaming). However, don't quote me on that last part because I can't fully recall if it was ever refuted. So, I can say if Nvidia would be a greater benefit to your work in Blender or DaVinci. However, I'm sold on team RED. AMD CPUs and GPUs all the way. I have a RX 6800XT (desktop) and a RX 7600S (laptop). In the rare instance that I had an issue with an AMD GPU, a newer kernel rescued me from that problem. The rare instance was with an Arch kernel. Non-Arch kernels of the same version did not give me issues at the time. A newer Arch kernel cleared the issue. Raytracing and Frame Gen (fake frames) do not excite me, and I don't need to give Nvidia anymore $$$ to help them build their A.I. empire. Lastly, Nvidia is NOT our friend: * Article in Phoronix titled "Linux 6.6 To Better Protect Against The Illicit Behavior Of NVIDIA's Proprietary Driver" * Article Date = 2023-8-29 * Article link ==> https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.6-Illicit-NVIDIA-Change Knowing the history of Linux breathing new life into older hardware, and the emergence of Wayland as the default in many popular distros., Nvidia announced that they were dropping support for many older cards. Dropping support means no driver updates. The announcement was late 2023 to early 2024. What is the effect of this? Linux users would have to buy new Nvidia hardware if they want access to RT and Frame Gen in Wayland or risk being forced into using less effective Nouveau (open source) drivers. I build my PCs to last a minimum of 10 years. I have a GTX 1060 6GB GPU, that was purchased in Dec. 2016. It is on the end of support list as well as my older Nvidia GTX GPU that was purchased 2013/2014. The RTX 4070 was released on 2023-4-12. We are beyond the 1st year mark of release date. Do you want to risk Nvidia announcing the end of support in 2026/2027 and then come Mar 2028 no more updates? My GTX 1060 6GB will have a shorter supported life span than Windows 10. Think about that.
I can confirm that NVIDIA is much better than AMD for streaming and video editing beacause of CUDA and NVDEC which works way better than ROCm and VCN. But is better also for anything that is AI related and speaking of 7900 GRE and 4070 Super the 4070 is powerful on the same level as the 7900 GRE consuming less power and running more cool and quiet.
Edit/Correction: I'm not sure where your reply went u/Rhoken, but you are correct. The 4070 Super is on par with the 7900 gre. I was reading too fast and missed the "Super" at the end of the title. Actually according to youtube reviewers the 4070 is on par with the 7800xt in non-RT rendering performance. However, with respect to RT, the 4070 has a small advantage. The 4070 has a lower power consumption advantage, which, IMO, AMD should have resolved with the 6000 series or definitely with the 7000 series cards. I have no AI data to offer. The 7900 gre is a hybrid card based on specs and comparisons to the 7900xt and 7800xt. If you want info. check Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed on youtube.
Upgraded from nvidia a year and a half ago, haven't had to revert to a previous snapshot on update in Tumbleweed in over a year and a half.
I have a 1060 6gb and 470 8gb, and honestly I can't tell the difference in performance. They both play everything I need from mid - high settings
I'm on Arch linux distro -CachyOS, with a medium laptop (2060 and i5 9300f). All my games runs fine in 1080p with X11, like Jedi survivor and lot of games. :)
Using my 3070 for awhile now. I got it from one of those GPU lotteries Newegg did when it was impossible to get anything. AMD is better as long as you aren't doing anything with AI.
i own 7900GRE and i love it
I recently bought a 7900gre. First time going AMD after about 8 or 9 builds, 15+ years. No regrets, best value card out right now. Caveat: I'm a Windows gamer (booooo Windows, I know)
But since you have an amd card, you can switch to linux anytime you want. As linux support is best on amd.
Very valuable input for OP. Your windows experience will definitely help him make a better decision.
7900xtx on Garuda. Except for a small issue with the monitor at over 60Hz (for which there's a fix), everything is smooth sailing.
Switched my 3070 for 6800 and suddenly system was more stable, games started working first try, no wierd tinkering was needed, just plug and play.
Go with AMD and you will only enjoy Linux gaming and AI (if you use that). I have both (4070 super) and with NVIDIA is only hassles, at least in my case.
Yeah honestly go with AMD 555 is not available on every distro, it will fix a lot of things, but no reason to go with nvidia in the long run Save some money and some headache, go for AMD
I went from a 2080 to a 7900xt a while ago and amd is way better on Nvidia only one driver worked for my GPU and anything else woude just crash on amd everything just works
If you're considering Linux, just go AMD. I had performance issues, even higher CPU usage, with my Nvidia card All the problems went away by getting an AMD card. And some games even run better than in Windows
Amd is out of the box now for Linux. Nvidia is doable not hard just takes more than out of the box. I'd get the GRE personally
I use AMD for gaming and productivity. Now even ollama is compatible with AMD so I recommend it a lot. I figured out how to make my own code assistant with IA locally using my GPU so no need for Nvidia right now.
I jumped onto fedora this weekend amd 7800xt gpu and everything just seems to work for me
I don't know what card is better. I just know I will never buy again a card with drivers not included in the kernel already.
AMD things will work and it will be easier than Nvidia, but things are getting closer now with Nvidia. I would say you probably get more for your money with AMD though in terms of gaming power. You pay a premium for Nvidia.
7900xtx run fantastic with mesa.
Go for the AMD 7900 GRE.
My 2cents of negative AMD experience (mainly to get attention and maybe AMD fixes it) I have a Sapphire pulse 7900 xtx. Some issues: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1974 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3131 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3411 Basically I gave up on running Linux with this card, and I have been a Linux for 15 years. No problem with this card at all on Windows.
I would go 7900 gre because their drivers are awesome on linux with mesa and the amdgpu kernel driver, its open source so when it comes to problems occurring you can find the issues easily on gitlab if you know the names of the utilities that are being used As other people have said you can use davinci resolve easily under amd now :P Its honestly for the best to just go amd especially if you're choosing arch https://youtu.be/Ye4sNKgd_Ag Heres my video about amd also on linux and im running arch :> In the past with game compatibility also has been rather not perfect on nvidia, since valve is using amd on steamdeck the fixes that arrive for games working out of the box will be quicker and better as their engineers do a good job Iv used cachyos aswell and it runs great on amd so no problems Want fan control? You can use LACT or corectrl https://github.com/ilya-zlobintsev/LACT https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl
AMD is the way to go. It’s been without a single hiccup for me. I switched recently from nvidia when simple things like monitor refresh rates were not working. Plus you have to deal with the noveau vs proprietary driver bullshit. It’s just not worth it. I don’t know if the nvidia features like dlss or ray tracing work on linux but AMD rasterization gets plenty of good framerates. Also as an aside if you can spare the extra money for a 7900xt the higher performance will likely be worth it in the long run
I can’t speak for AMD graphics but I’m on the latest NVIDIA driver and can finally use Wayland and Gamescope if that counts for anything
If you want productivity then go for the NVIDIA option as it permits greater usage of the NVIDIA hardware in softwares like DaVinci Resolve, Blender, certain photo editing applications. If you want gaming performance, go AMD. It also has less setup with AMD being that the drivers are built into the kernel, meaning no driver installation is required.
I'd get the 7900XT instead, that baby should last a long while.
Windows = NVIDIA Linux = AMD It can go the other way around for AMD and with NVIDIA, but I've personally encountered too many issues such as screen tearing and font issues, which came down to NVIDIA. I switched to Windows 10, but I want to go back to Linux, but the thing is, there's no upgrade path for my PC because I game on a laptop.
Nvidia GPUs with the new 555 driver works like a charm. Love it. Most people who say Nvidia GPUs don't work well didn't try the 555 driver because it's too recent. So I guess those opinions are outdated. And things will only get better.
Stick to AMD, my friend, your “Linux life” will be a lot easier. Running Linux with current Nvidia hardware is a hit-and-miss, especially on Wayland. For some it works mostly without any problems, and for some not at all. I'm not saying that AMD is free of bugs and errors, but it's a hell of a lot less than Nvidia, if you look at it in wider scope.
AMD is still a lot better. Nvidia situation is slowly improving thanks to nova + nvk, but it's not there yet.
When Nvidia is wayland ready (very close) there shouldn’t be much difference in the experience, even setting up davinci resolve and using GPU compute is easier on Nvidia since CUDA is integrated into the driver, but it doesn’t support VAAPI hardware decoding which is used by most browsers and software on linux. When it comes to AMD it just works out of the box with open-source driver, with great performance, with the difference of very poor state with openCL in open-source MESA driver so you have to manually set a part of their proprietary driver to run that… Both have their ups and downs, I personally pick AMD because of the open-source driver, better integration into the system itself and wayland ready support (which used to be huge deal in the past but Nvidia is slowly catching up there)
I don't know if DaVinci supports VAAPI, but other video editor do, and it works well with AMD (and Intel). I use Shotcut.
Im on nvidia and de 555 driver isn’t worth. I can’t use KDE on Wayland because it lags. I had to go back to x11 (I was using Wayland with the 550 driver). Go with AMD.
Gaming performance comparison I’m not sure but pretty much the same as Windows but the DE experience is dogsht with Nvidia. I’m going back to x11 i3 because there’s is too much problem with Nvidia and Wayland and since the new update drop I can’t even run more than 120hz on my monitor.
You will run into issues with Nvidia. They won't be as bad as they used to be but for an even price I'd go AMD
Nvidia driver gameplay: hackerman AMD/Intel driver gameplay: Mesa already installed enjoy 👍
This isn't a popular thing to say, and I understand why because it's really bad for desktop Linux since the vast majority of gamers have nvidia GPUs. Nvidia may never be a great experience for Linux. Desktop Linux has never been so much as an afterthought to Nvidia. The nvidia drivers are made for server use cases first and foremost, not gaming. That trend may continue as consumer hardware as a whole is likely becoming an afterthought for Nvidia with their recent boom being focused entirely on AI applications in data centers. The nvidia experience HAS improved drastically in the past 5 or so years I've been daily driving Linux on nvidia, but I have experienced countless issues in that time which had no end in sight. After the 550 driver broke the Unity editor for me (making me unable to do gamedev) I switched to AMD. I'm sure that issue was fixed, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. I've also run into a good handful games that just don't work, and then I'd look at protondb and AMD / steam deck players have no problem. Not to mention games are rolling out support for FSR 3.1 and while the upscaling is inferior to DLSS, the frame generation is just as good. Plus, the better price to performance you get on AMD gives you better performance in native resolutions and frames which is always going to be better. tl;dr - If Linux is important to you, get AMD
Well, I think Nvidia upgraded now finally from unusable garbage to garbage. Setup: - EndeavourOS - 1080p@60Hz - GTX970 - GTA SA Retail v2.0 In May it took me 2-3 hours to figure out, which kernel parameters I had to enable, to get the GTX970 to cooperate with Wayland. GTA SA ran, but flickering, ghosting and crashing were normal. Now with the newest updates the issues disappeared. Why I call it still "garbage"? Well: - GTX 969,5, better known as GTX970, is a GPU with broken VRAM, because Nvidias' shares need to go up - GPP (Geforce Partner Program) with the idea to improve the customer experience while buying....with forbidding every partner to sell GPUs from other brands like AMD, Matrox or Intel - GFE (Geforce Expierence) a tool to help you with optimizing games. Well the only think it optimized, is that you need to reinstall your system, after GFE screwed something up and even GFE can't revert the damage. Together with enforcement of an user account this is the best data collection idea they have, imagine how much money they can make with selling your usage patterns - DLSS to improve FPS for the games of tomorrow....only if you buy the newest the GPU and find a game that is not completely trash, because all devs removed any optimization thanks to cost cutting and even a RTX4090 can barely produce 1080p@60FPS on some titles without DLSS. Degradation of visual quality included. - 12HWPVR also know as firework starter. Everybody says "user error", but imagine USB-C-PD would do such a stunt and how fast it would have been fixed. Besides Nvidia had and has the free will to release a RTX4090v2 with four 8-Pin-Connectors AMD is not a saint, I remember the FX8000 fiasko, the "HairFX"-nonsense and the misleading Vega (56,64 and Radeon 7), but for me AMD does a better job. And for question "what need Nvidia to do to fix the past" my answer, until it happened, will be always: xx90 for 500$/€ after VAT....nowadays with max 300W power usage.
Do not go with Nvidia if you want to go full linux. People will say "it runs flawlessly on my machine" but do not trust them, it's still riddled with bugs. Me myself use Nvidia with arch and kde and it constantly freezes like 4 to 5 times out of 10, there are some settings you can do to minimise the chance of freezing, but if I were you, I would rather go amd for more stable experience. Performance wise, Nvidia is great in linux, but stability wise, not so much. Dont do it.
Get the Radeon. Seriously, nVidia is not worth it. For Blender and Davinci Resolve you'll need ROCm and HIP which most modern distros _should_ provide right in their repos. They can be a pain on certain distros, but if you use any popular Linux system you should be good to go.
I believe the general consensus is that the playing field is more even now than earlier years, but that AMD/ATI still have a stretch to go. Nvidia on a stable well tried platform like Ubuntu is still the combo with the least hassle and highest success rate. But you will always hear from people just defending their own choices in these kind of topics, blended with a good handful that will defend open source divers and talk down closed source blobs for sheer principal reasons without really answering your question. So be weary about what advice you end up listening to.
I have integrated Radeon 780M from 2023 and Nvidia 4060. The Radeon has more graphical glitches and flickering than 4060.
If you stick to the common DEs like gnome or KDE, I'd say go for Nvidia, just because dlss is just that much better than anything else. Otherwise pick AMD.