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
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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I'm not. Nvidia dkms hasn't failed me yet. I'm using Garuda Linux.
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.
I use PyTorch daily at work and I'm happy to have gone AMD. Initial support for last gen was lacking but it's there now. It mostly works , the performance is great but it crashes on some unusual tasks.
Yes, it is worth differentiating between writing AI yourself and trying to get some giant open source project to work where you have no idea why it fails.
Your comment is appreciated, because everyone has to decide for themselves if "it crashes on some unusual tasks." is worth the performance or VRAM increase you can get with AMD.
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.
I have a 1070 Ti, but I'm on Ubuntu and I haven't had any issues at all for ~5 years. IMO the issue then is Arch, and how the drivers are handled. I also have only updated the driver once (450-server to 525-server), when Satisfactory switched to unreal engine 5.
I would still recommend AMD though, and I also plan on switching when I have the money for it.
I have a 1060 on Arch and had no problems whatsoever. It will get ugly once the 1060 is no longer supported by the mainline driver, though.
I bought a Rx 5700xt for 190€ in Germany this was 4 month's ago