Hey this maybe a stupid question. I am considering on buying a GPU. I am in conflict between nvidia and AMD. I know AMD works better on linux in general but I am curious to follow the NVIDIA advancements as they go with the new open source kernel modules and stuff… I don’t know if it is worth it to pick team green over team red. Also typically performance will be better with NVIDIA on compute and stuff like that.
P.S.
Yes, this is related to the previous post I made here.
Unless you are a power user who is confident in your ability to troubleshoot weird/esoteric issues and bugs, just go AMD.
If there aren’t any specific features you need from Nvidia, like CUDA for CAD/Render workloads, AMD is going to have a higher chance of #JustWorking and will give you awesome gaming performance.
I’ve got a 6700XT paired with a 5800X3D running Nobara Linux for my main gaming rig. Love it to death, runs everything butter smooth.
For instance, Deep Rock Galactic maxed settings at 1080p, I don’t ever see it dip below about 160FPS, and most of the time it’s between 180-210, which feels amazing on my 240Hz monitor.
In defense of Nvidia, things are wayyy better than they were even 2-3 years ago, and the majority of folks, especially with older Nvidia GPUs, seem to have a pretty decent experience on Linux.
That being said, I would estimate that roughly 75% of the posts I see from users who are having really odd/random issues with Linux have an Nvidia GPU.
Only recent issue I’ve seen from AMD folks is VRR problems via HDMI. No idea if that affects Nvidia users, but I’d imagine it’s a small subset of AMD users experiencing that.
The VRR problems are specifically related to either monitors not supporting Freesync over HDMI or the user running a monitor expecting HDMI VRR to work on HDMI 2.1 specs (>4k@60hz or equivalent bandwidth negotiation requirements). I would concur a small subset of users is correct for the use-cases where this becomes a problem.
I’ve got a 3070. What can I expect when I install Mint?
It will install fine and will use the open source nouveau driver by default. After install, you can search the app for configuring drivers to install the proprietary driver from NVIDA from there via a GUI.
I think you have to manually install the Nvidia drivers. If you search “drivers” in the Cinnamon launcher, they have a system app to download and install them.