Cheap AMD card for Linux?
- Thread starter Ice Tea
- Start date
Soldato
Not sure that I get what you mean?
I use Linux on a Laptop that has nVidia graphics and its absolutely fine.
I also use it on a Desktop and thats AMD GFX and thats also fine too!
The AMD Drivers want to be the official ones and thats cool but AMD Drivers are well supported automatically.
Now, as to cheap AMD Card, then sure, why not, but the speed of games does seem to be an issue under Linux compared to Windows and so a cheap card will be fine as long as you dont need to play 3D games.
I use Linux on a Laptop that has nVidia graphics and its absolutely fine.
I also use it on a Desktop and thats AMD GFX and thats also fine too!
The AMD Drivers want to be the official ones and thats cool but AMD Drivers are well supported automatically.
Now, as to cheap AMD Card, then sure, why not, but the speed of games does seem to be an issue under Linux compared to Windows and so a cheap card will be fine as long as you dont need to play 3D games.
I have absolutely no idea about AMD cards in regards to linux and wondered if there was a budget card worth considering or if some of card architectures were regularly dropped into legacy?
Soldato
Ah, ok. Well, when it comes to the latest cards, Im not fully up on them as I dont game that much and dont see the need for one.
I have an RX580 that runs just fine for everything I throw at it, and I only have a 1080Ti ( Only? Its still far more than I need )
Both of these cards run just fine. In fact, I also have ATI 7770 and nVidia 980 cards too and they also run everything I want them to, just fine also!
I think you will be just peachy no matter what you want to do, with the exception perhaps of gaming.
ATI / AMD Driver support I feel is great in Linux.
I have an RX580 that runs just fine for everything I throw at it, and I only have a 1080Ti ( Only? Its still far more than I need )
Both of these cards run just fine. In fact, I also have ATI 7770 and nVidia 980 cards too and they also run everything I want them to, just fine also!
I think you will be just peachy no matter what you want to do, with the exception perhaps of gaming.
ATI / AMD Driver support I feel is great in Linux.
AMD provides a lot of help and documentation for the community to create open source drivers. So usually AMD cards work on Linux without having to install anything as they are often supported "out of the box". There are official closed source AMD drivers which support some features but for gaming the open source drivers are actually better. Being open source also means that older GPU's are supported for longer.
NVidia have, until recently, not been very friendly to the open source community. So the open source drivers are not very good. Therefore the closed source drivers are preferred for gaming on an NVidia GPU. It's not the end of the world but just means installing closed source drivers which some people are ideologically against. Some distros include them.
Overall I prefer AMD GPU's on Linux. It's not for ideological reasons but simply because the GPU works out of the box on any distro I decide to try. It also shows support for AMD's Linux friendly approach. However I seem to recall that NVidia cards offer better performance. So either are fine really.
NVidia have, until recently, not been very friendly to the open source community. So the open source drivers are not very good. Therefore the closed source drivers are preferred for gaming on an NVidia GPU. It's not the end of the world but just means installing closed source drivers which some people are ideologically against. Some distros include them.
Overall I prefer AMD GPU's on Linux. It's not for ideological reasons but simply because the GPU works out of the box on any distro I decide to try. It also shows support for AMD's Linux friendly approach. However I seem to recall that NVidia cards offer better performance. So either are fine really.
Yeah i was reading recently on Phoronix that Nvidia is going open source in a hybrid fashion as it will only be modern cards and parts of the code will stay proprietary, Not sure where this will leave the future of Nouveau drivers as they are already broken with Wayland and doing bat **** crazy unstable things.
If you want hardware accelerated video playback on Linux (especially in browser) you're going to need AMD. Even the open source amdgpu driver runs VAAPI perfectly, but HWA video has been broken since forever on Nvidia no matter which driver you use (open/proprietary).
@Ice Tea if you only care about rendering the desktop and playing back x264 flawlessly, then any cheap 2nd hand AMD card will suffice (even down to RX280 or earlier). If you want x265 or VP9, you're going to need anything after Vega and you'll pay a lot more. For games? Dunno, I don't play them.
Soldato
I am aware that AMD work out of the box and its great as I said.
The nVidia drivers that I install to it, are also great. Yes, I have had an issue or two here and there for some strange reason that I have never bothered to care about, but its not that often.
I think the only cards that I have that are ATI v NVIDIA and are about on par with each other, would be the ATI7770 and the 470GTX
These cards are very close in terms of game speed and so, I dare say that I could maybe do a couple of comparisons on Windows and Linux with these cards?
It may just be a silly and very out of date comparison however.
Where the ATI does beat the nVidia for me, is that the ATI cards power useage is half that of the nVidia. For me, that makes a difference. The NVidia costs twice as much to sit there as the ATI does in full swing!
This has always been a decider for me especially in the last few years.
It will be more so, now that last months Electricity bill in my house was £680 - Yeah... the MONTHLY bill
The nVidia drivers that I install to it, are also great. Yes, I have had an issue or two here and there for some strange reason that I have never bothered to care about, but its not that often.
I think the only cards that I have that are ATI v NVIDIA and are about on par with each other, would be the ATI7770 and the 470GTX
These cards are very close in terms of game speed and so, I dare say that I could maybe do a couple of comparisons on Windows and Linux with these cards?
It may just be a silly and very out of date comparison however.
Where the ATI does beat the nVidia for me, is that the ATI cards power useage is half that of the nVidia. For me, that makes a difference. The NVidia costs twice as much to sit there as the ATI does in full swing!
This has always been a decider for me especially in the last few years.
It will be more so, now that last months Electricity bill in my house was £680 - Yeah... the MONTHLY bill
Right, but I'm not talking about drivers or their quality. Nvidia don't support VAAPI / hardware accelerated video playback on Linux, period. There used to be a VDPAU-VAAPI adapter but it broke a long time ago. As such, Nvidia will always be inferior to AMD, especially on anything with a weak or old CPU, and/or with a battery.
Haveing used both Nvidia and AMD on linux I can say AMD is the better choice. I do game as well.
Regards perf between the two it actually tips in AMD's favour now . Not sure on th low end stuff though.
Regards Wayland , Still AMD best bet for now. Having said that not tried a 30xx series.
Regards perf between the two it actually tips in AMD's favour now . Not sure on th low end stuff though.
Regards Wayland , Still AMD best bet for now. Having said that not tried a 30xx series.
Thanks.
Soldato
"Nvidia don't support VAAPI / hardware accelerated video playback on Linux, period."
Yes, thats true.
Anyway, as I said, I dont game much and what I do game, the most graphically testing games that I do play these days are Dawn Of War & Company of Heroes etc.
These are done via Steam and the compatibility thing and so they wont be 100% perfect under Linux no matter what card I have.
Yes, thats true.
Anyway, as I said, I dont game much and what I do game, the most graphically testing games that I do play these days are Dawn Of War & Company of Heroes etc.
These are done via Steam and the compatibility thing and so they wont be 100% perfect under Linux no matter what card I have.
Associate
As others have said, AMD cards work very well. I've been running a RX 580 for some time and am looking at a RX 6650 XT soon.
One point worth mentioning though is that hardware accelerated encoding is crap AMD cards. Even though newer RDNA3 supported models suck compared to NVENC, and don't even bother with the older models, so if you plan to do any encoding, make sure you have enough CPU resource to handle it, or some other hardware to offload to such as Quick Sync, or an additional suitable GPU.
One point worth mentioning though is that hardware accelerated encoding is crap AMD cards. Even though newer RDNA3 supported models suck compared to NVENC, and don't even bother with the older models, so if you plan to do any encoding, make sure you have enough CPU resource to handle it, or some other hardware to offload to such as Quick Sync, or an additional suitable GPU.
Soldato
Ah, Ill also give an update.
Had some weird Hard disk issues with both my Linux PCs lately, and yet while both PCs have had a fresh set of Hard drives ( Both have had 240GB SSD for / and a 2TB HD for /home and a second 2TB HD for /home/data ) they are both moaning still, and the previous HDs seem to be absolutely fine??? I may have found an issue With Mint Cinnamon 21.1 or I may just be bbloody unlucky, so anyway...
This time round, some steam games, have simply not worked, DOW2 for example moans about it not being compatible on the distro I am using, and then it tries to run but simply exits before anything happens, although it did work fine previously, and it does this on the ATI and the nVidia setups.
I agree with the AMD Cards however... They dont need extra Drivers like the nVidia ones, however the nVidia ones seem to run vastly better... At least for me and my setups anwyay.
Plus, for some reasons, loading up any games take what seems like an age under Linux and yet is near to instant on Windows.
In fact, if I quit a game under Windows, and then reload it without restarting, it kind of starts up in under a second... Almost just as quick as if I just ALT-TEBBED it from the background. It is clearly well cached surely, but under Linux... NOPE! - I will be lucky if its under 30 seconds!
This never used to happen this badly.
Overall, I am just not liking some newer distros for various reasons.
Had some weird Hard disk issues with both my Linux PCs lately, and yet while both PCs have had a fresh set of Hard drives ( Both have had 240GB SSD for / and a 2TB HD for /home and a second 2TB HD for /home/data ) they are both moaning still, and the previous HDs seem to be absolutely fine??? I may have found an issue With Mint Cinnamon 21.1 or I may just be bbloody unlucky, so anyway...
This time round, some steam games, have simply not worked, DOW2 for example moans about it not being compatible on the distro I am using, and then it tries to run but simply exits before anything happens, although it did work fine previously, and it does this on the ATI and the nVidia setups.
I agree with the AMD Cards however... They dont need extra Drivers like the nVidia ones, however the nVidia ones seem to run vastly better... At least for me and my setups anwyay.
Plus, for some reasons, loading up any games take what seems like an age under Linux and yet is near to instant on Windows.
In fact, if I quit a game under Windows, and then reload it without restarting, it kind of starts up in under a second... Almost just as quick as if I just ALT-TEBBED it from the background. It is clearly well cached surely, but under Linux... NOPE! - I will be lucky if its under 30 seconds!
This never used to happen this badly.
Overall, I am just not liking some newer distros for various reasons.
Hardware encoder(AMF) works well on the 6000 series just to note.
Associate
Yeah, it's much improved, but NVENC still whoops it. Personally, I prefer to go with a beefy CPU with plenty of cores and cache if graphics intensive work or games are required simultaneously with encoding.
In what way ?
It encodes on the fly via GPU at whatever bitrate you wish so not sure what am missing ! Quality wise issue ?
I'd post a vid but @humbug and @Curlyriff swear a lot ! oh and me too
Associate
Yeah exactly, the picture quality is better on NVENC, but it has come a long way, and HW encoding is totally usable nowadays both on 6000 and 7000 series cards. If you went the best of the best quality though CPU is the one.In what way ?
It encodes on the fly via GPU at whatever bitrate you wish so not sure what am missing ! Quality wise issue ?
I'd post a vid but @humbug and @Curlyriff swear a lot ! oh and me too