Which GPU to choose for Linux gaming?

AMD all the way. Few weeks ago I finally made a switch from Nvida for the first time. I have no problems in gaming. All games that I play run same as on windows.

Just chipping in to say I have a 3060 and I’m scared of every update breaking my drivers again - just don’t get a Nvidia, don’t do it to yourself

Short answer: AMD

Long answer: AMD used to be very bad, NVIDIA has always been the same, i.e. if you're willing to use proprietary drivers it works, but it has some hiccups. A while back AMD open source their drivers so the game turned around, nowadays they're very easy and compatible from what I've heard. I've used NVIDIA for over a decade, but my next card Winn be AMD for sure.

PS: if you're still in doubt, the latest Linux kernel purposefully broke the NVIDIA proprietary driver because NVIDIA has been copyright infringing the Linux kernel by using functions that are considered so integral to the kernel that if you have to use them you work should be considered derivative and be bounded by GPL licence.

Definitely AMD. The drivers are actually open source, much better with less bugs and there are no problems known to me. I currently have had a GTX 1070 for the last 5 years, until I've enough money for an AMD card. My setups, especially Wayland based, are riddled with bugs not present on my (Intel based) laptop - which means the only explanation is the NVidia card. The (admittedly: testing on Arch) drivers have broken two times in a year, not making the system unusable but definitely preventing gaming.
On top of that, the 4090 may be 25% better than the 7900 XTX - but it's also 50+% more expensive than the 7900 XTX, which is a pattern which can be seen for every generation and version of GPUs by Nvidia/AMD. Nvidia's equivalents to AMD's cards are generally 25-50% more expensive, with worse performance but better Raytracing and of course DLSS support - oh wait, DLSS 1 and 2 are only for RTX 20 and up, while DLSS 4 is only for 40 Series GPUs. Which means no matter how good it looks, FSR will be the only alternative for almost all players, even those using NVidia cards like me.

Something different: Intel's Arc GPUs would maybe be worth a shot. According to a PC World article, the A770 beats the 3060 even in it's own habitat - Raytracing. It's cheap and gets better with every driver update. It also seems like the Arc GPUs are compatible with Linux fine, though I'd suggest you look up the compatibility with the games you want to play.

AMD, easily. Its literally plug and play. You can even pick some second hand options for cheap that are still solid for gaming such as the vega 56/64 and the RX 5700XT (which is I use). Intel isn't bad so long as you're not playing the newest stuff, my Arc a750 is solid in games like Fallout 4 and Elden Ring. Starfield is complete mess on it. Another thing with Intel is you'll need a distro with a 6+ kernel to get the most out of it.

AMD is better on Linux most of the time. Running a AMD card day one is not hassle free.

That being said if you pick a up to date distro all 7000 and 6000 series should work fine now. They are already in the kernel and mesa for a while. You may want to update you kernel and mesa sometimes to get better performance and stability.

But in my experience nvidia is fine on Linux. (I only used older cards gtx 970 and a rtx 2060) especially when you have just one monitor or all monitors on the same refresh rate. It's not on par with windows but will work with the Nvidia drivers.

So I would say if you a simple setup Nvidia is fine and AMD is better. It all depends on the best deal you can get. If ray tracing is not that important AMD is new the best value. If you more on a budget second AMD Rx 5700 XT are pretty cheap here and there are some good deals on Nvidia 30 series cards.

As far I have read intel cards can be a pain on Linux. So I would not recommend it for now.

"Better" is relative to your own use case. If you're a casual user, who maybe play some games on Linux, and don't really care about getting those games to work with Nvidia's version of ray tracing upscaling stuff, getting an AMD card is no brainer because it's cheaper and works out of the box too, and many games are starting to support ray tracing and upscaling on AMD card as well.

But, if you absolutely need to have access to CUDA, RTX and DLSS, then you'll have to get an Nvidia card and deal with consequences of using their drivers (buggy on Wayland, etc).

well...

This sums up my feelings on Nvidia.

AMD is generally better

If I were buying a card right now I'd get either the 6700XT or the 6800XT because they're both at crazy good value for the money right now, especially if you can get one used or refurbished from a reputable seller with a return policy.

I have never had issues with AMD for my graphics cards, been running team red with Linux for almost a decade now. Even switching distros no issues. But, I don’t buy new hardware, I always grab last gen, so bugs are usually worked out by the time I get my hands on it.

AMD. I’d get the rx 6800 xt

I'm mostly a newbie to Linux, I've been using it as a main gaming rig for several months and only Nobara. I hear often that AMD is hassle free, but I'm using Nvidia and honestly I've had no roadblocks. I started with a 2080ti and have since moved to a 4080, no hassles. There is a built in updater and it automatically downloads the newest driver packages. They are always a version or so behind the latest Windows set but meh. Switching on gSync was as simple as toggling VRR for my 144hz monitor.

The one thing that I needed to look up was getting ray tracing running. There was additional stuff I needed to add in Steam (copy paste from the post I found), and then RTX was up and running.

Like I say, I definitely don't know better than the people saying AMD is a smart choice, but I don't think people necessarily need to worry that their Nvidia system is a roadblock to switching to Linux.

STOP recommending Intel Arc for Linux, people. Do any of you saying that even own one?

I had a gtx1060 when I started using linux, then upgraded to 2060 then again to 2080, they all worked fine without any major problem (except that file system checking at boot sometimes and wayland). Last year I upgraded to RX6800 and man everything just works, no more filesystem checks at boot, Wayland is mu way to go now.

If I have a nvidia card now I would just use, but if I'm buying a new/used gpu it will definitely be AMD.

I bought a Rx 5700xt for 190€ in Germany this was 4 month's ago

There is also Intel Arc now, which does offer some relatively good value for money.

Otherwise, yeah AMD is more hassle free on Linux. Any model works, so just look at your budget.

Not Nvidia, they do not play well with Linux. I've had all sorts of weird problems that I've traced back to driver errors caused by Nvidia, both proprietary and open source.

For gaming and desktop use, I've had a flawless experience using AMD cards and a decent time with NVIDIA. The only reason I'm with NVIDIA now is for the AI capabilities (don't bother trying to run stuff using AMD's ROCm - it's near impossible to install).

I know which NOT to buy

Literally Intel or AMD. You may pick Intel dGPU as well.

I just built my first every dedicated Linux machine. With gaming and 3d design for printing as focus. I chose RX 6700 XT and it's been plug and play. Of course I've only been playing Starfield so far on it. I did have a bug with Steam but got that sorted.

What do you use your PC for? Just games? Or AI as well?

If it's just games, I'd go AMD. More VRAM = more better and AMD has more VRAM for the same price.

If you want to do AI on your PC as well, I'd go Nvidia. The software support from AMD is just not there yet.

I had no issues with Nvidia on pop os and Ubuntu, and rarely any issues on arch. That's the bleeding of "bleeding edge" for ya, lol. But it's a single command to roll back to a previous version of the driver, so no big deal anyway.

Definitely AMD, they give people enough data to build open source drivers and you will simply have better support and integration with those. It's not like Nvidia drivers are awful or anything but they just cause annoyances and especially with new technologies like Wayland (Display server protocol that most of Linux is about to adopt) they can be a pain. AMD GPUs work great on Linux, have far better pricing rn and they have no issues with Windows ether, even if you used Windows more I would recommend AMD rn for the pricing alone!

I just swapped from NVidia to AMD, since Proton was not working under NVidia for Starfield at launch (and I’ve generally been unhappy using NVidia for a while).

I can finally also use things like Wayland where NVidia just doesn’t support it well enough to be a good option (e.g., weird issues with full disk encryption unlock screen, no night light support)

I know CUDA and productivity apps might push you in the other direction, but if your main priority is gaming, I suspect AMD will be nicer. My first impressions is that it plays way better with Linux and reduces headaches that shouldn’t exist but you’ll deal with under Nvidia.

I can't play starfield right now because of issues with the Nvidia 535 driver causing the game to crash on starting a new game.
Downgrading to the older 525 driver lets the game play but with severe performance issues and a level of input lag and freezing that is toxic. My playtime says 4.5 hours but 4 hours of that was restarting the game with different drivers and toggling off different settings in the game for the absolute lowest performance. I'll just have to wait a month or so until the bugs are worked on and new driver versions are released.

• Valve Github Issue Tracker for Starfield
• Proton DB Reports on Starfield playability issues on Linux and steamdeck

Summary: If you are ok with playing games a month or two after release with a potential for some driver issues, Nvidia will probably be fine. I can play every older game in my steam library using Proton (which is built in to steam, you just need to turn it on in the game properties).
Otherwise it is a risk and you will always run into issues with Nvidia's proprietary drivers and new games.

I'll be getting AMD processor and GPU for my next desktop gaming computer.

I have an NVIDIA 1060 and it is such a pain in the ass to deal with. The number of random problems I've had with it has put me off from ever buying a computer with NVIDIA hardware ever again. Save yourself the constant walking on eggshells and get AMD.

No idea about AMD but I have nvidia 3070 and works just fine. I use gnome for gaming and kde works well too. No settings changed, simple archinstall script with nvidia proprietary drivers and steam.

I'm not sure why but xfce multi screen gaming is problematic, haven't dived into it.

Not saying don't get AMD but nvidia has horrible reputation which is kinda unfair nowadays. Their driver has improved a lot.

Pick one that fits your bills! Usually, AMD ones have more VRAM for the same price compared to Nvidia... I use Nvidia here (Asus tuf rtx3080 with 12GB VRAM), but I'd use an AMD one without problems too, if I had one...

Just avoid Intel Arc right now!!!

PS: if you need CUDA, you'll have to use Nvidia

I have used an GTX 3070 with no issues for the past 3.5 years, before that I used an AMD Vega 64 with no issues. I think if I were buying a new card and could stomach the prices I'd lean towards a Radeon 7900 XTX.

Anything by amd or intel

AMD is marginally easier but Nvidia is a lot better than people make out. The drivers install with one command in most distros.

I have a 2070 super that I use for gaming and tensor stuff. So far no problems with Arch, X11, and i3. I don't really have brand loyalty though, when I last bought a graphics card I just considered what was going to be best for my price point.

I'm using Intel Xe embedded graphics and they are suprisingly good. This is probably the first embedded intel chip that can run games. It's basically on par with low-end Nvidia and AMD cards.

I’ll sometimee switch to Windows to play specific games as well.

That is probably the best answer. Linux is a serious POSIX compliant UNIX like operating system. Gaming on Linux is pretty much an afterthought, with game studios not producing native Linux ports. Last I saw was Starsiege Tribes II, which while they made a native port, they let it languish and die. Most of the games out there will require Proton (A version of Wine) or similar. While that trick can get many games to play on Linux, usually it is not supported by the game studio that made the game, which is less than fun when games games end up having issues. Worse, games running ainti-cheat can mistake that fake windows environment as a hacked system designed to try and cheat the game, which can get you irreversibly banned from such a game. Not worth the risk. Finally, when issues with this compatibility wedge come up, and they will sooner or later, often gamers, such as yourself, take to blaming Linux, instead of the gaming studios or the compatibility wedge, making Linux look bad to others and hinders Linux desktop adoption rates. Do everyone yourself and Linux a favor and just run the games where they were made to be played, Windows... unless it's a native Linux port or even better, was written for Linux from the start.