AMD or NVidia graphics for a Linux PC in 2022?

[[SQ]Noname]

Everything's in the title basically - what would be the recommended graphics chip for a Linux PC these days, in terms of:
- Performance
- Hassle-free driver support
- General bang-for-your-buck

I've been an NVidia user for many years now, but I was always disappointed by the driver support. After a couple of negative experiences, I generally install the proprietary driver once when I install a new OS (every 4 years or so), and then never ever touch it again to not risk bricking my system due to an erroneous update.

I have no experience with recent AMD GPUs other than the one on the Steam Deck, but I've been always using, and will probably continue to use AMD CPUs.

I will probably continue to use various Ubuntu flavours.

So if I wanted to buy a new GPU in the near future, what would everyone recommend?

[Aoi Blue]

As of performance it depends on your budget. The top end nVidia cards are unmatched, but you pay through the nose for that performance.

Bang for the buck, unless wanting said nVidia cards, go with AMD and you will save a few dollars.

Hassle free drivers, unless you plan on using OpenCL and 3D Graphics at the same time, AMD's Open Source drivers are the best, with the only thing close to competition being Intel.

As a note, while the Intel drivers for Intel dedicated GPUs are even better feature-wise and ease of use than AMD (far fewer issues installing OpenCL) the performance on the dedicated cards is still slightly lacking compared to AMD and the potential of said cards. I would say to give them a few months if you want their cards.

As of best bang for your buck for the entry-level to moderately high-end tier, your AMD Rx 6000 series is the way to go for now, that is unless the Rx 7000 is available by the time you buy the card, then go with those, they look very promising.

[[SQ]Noname]

Thanks for the insight.

Just to be clear: I'm not religious about using Open Source drivers - I've always used the NVidia proprietary drivers, if that's what gives the best performance and stability, I'm fine with that.

I've done a bit of data mining, and it seems at least where I am the AMD cards are still slightly (read: ~€100) more expensive than comparable NVidia cards. i.e. comparable in terms of memory size, memory bandwidth and number of cores. So I'm not sure what I'm getting for that extra cost, but I haven't read any tests comparing the two directly yet.

[AlphaObeisance]

I run an AMD Ryzen 9 5950x and Nvidia RTX 3080 12GB GPU and my gaming experience on Linux is indistinguishable from that on Windows with my Arch Linux build. While that isn't exactly budget friendly; I have 3 other machines from low to mid budget running AMD CPU's and Nvidia GPU's and they all do equally as good respective of their individual capabilities.

I've found when people run into Issues gaming on Linux, it's almost guaranteed they're using an Intel CPU. So much so that I once thought of tallying up the tech support inquiries on the Steam forums, reddit and such just to see if I was just delusional or Intel really does run into more issues gaming on Linux.

That said, I also have a rig with an AMD Radeon GPU and it runs very well too. So I think you'd do fine either way in the GPU department. But personally, after all the studies and reading of issues I've seen over my time on Linux; I deliberately avoid Intel CPU's.

[[SQ]Noname]

Thanks for the reply.

Right now I tend to stay with NVidia should I ever upgrade, since I've heard nothing that would make me switch to an AMD GPU. Unfortunately, prices don't really seem to go down though, no matter the Bitcoin prices.

I do prefer AMD over Intel CPUs however, although I admit I have always been curious why Intel CPUs are so much more expensive for the same specs on paper.