Linux

The only reason I still go Nvidia is because I self host AI, which afaik takes advantage of CUDA and just runs overall better on Nvidia cards, or at the very least is easier to set up. Really, the top reason is that it's the devil I know right now.

If I didn't self host AI, I would 100% go AMD. Especially if you don't want to use proprietary drivers. That being said, my old gaming laptop runs NixOS with Nouveau and there have definitely been improvements since I first tried it years ago, but I don't do much gaming on it. It's more a TV media station these days (so I can avoid the stupid smart TV bloat agenda, where your TV gets gradually slower and fits less increasingly-bloating apps over time).

AMD is by far the best choice for foss drivers. Intel might be an option in the future but I have no experience with their new cards. A second option would be good for Linux users but it's unlikely to be NVIDIA.

Honestly even on Windows I preferred AMD's software suite compared to Nvidia control panel and GeForce Experience. Currently using a 7900XTX and pretty happy with it. Also I missed Radeon Chill when I was on Nvidia, didn't expect to care about that at all, but I love it.

if you are on linux AMD is the better choice, period.

don't get me wrong nvidia will work relatively well, ive ran it before on linux and its actually improving. but it isnt worth the pricetag to have tons of small issues everywhere.

Like others have already said, if you want Foss drivers then AMD is your only choice.

However, if you want the most performant cards on the market then you can safely choose nvidia. The drivers work really well now, no tinkering required. Even multi monitor vrr works now with the latest drivers.

Stop listening to what people are parroting, nvidia used to be a bad choice, but not anymore. Even Linus Torvalds has changed his mind

So, when AI people came in, that was wonderful, because it meant somebody at NVIDIA had got much more involved on the kernel side, and NVIDIA went from being on my list of companies who are not good to my list of people who are doing really good work.

I don't want any proprietary drivers

So then you don't want any NVIDIA.

The AMD open source Linux driver performs better than their Windows driver. And there is no proprietary AMD Linux driver, the official AMD driver for Linux is open source.

100% AMD, for sure. AMD won't make much problems and works ootb.

Nvidia on the other hand... if you already have a Nvidia GPU, then the proprietary drivers work pretty well, but even those won't work flawlessly and still cause problems for many people.
And the FOSS drivers are still in the early stages and won't cut it. So why spend lots of money for a piece of hardware that won't give you the performance you paid for?

Also, Nvidia clearly doesn't care about PCs or its' users, so why support such a shitty company with your money?

As someone who started using Linux while on Nvidia and stuck with it for over a year before going full AMD.

Just go AMD, so many little things I had to find workarounds for just because of Nvidias shitty drivers.

Even after Nvidia claimed to support wayland I could never get it to run on my install, then having to manually configure my xorg just to get my 170hz monitor working which then introduced graphical issues I just couldn't fix...NONE of that was an issue the moment I swapped to a RX 7800 XT, didn't even have to install any drivers they're just standard in the kernal.

I have 2 PCs, both on Linux. One with an AMD XTX 7900 XT, the other one has an Nvidia 3080 TI.

The Nvidia one is running the latest proprietary drivers, and they suck HARD. They just are far inferior to AMD's. The only reason to go Nvidia is to do local AI or video (editing / transcoding).

If your primary use is gaming and go Nvidia, you will be sabotaging yourself.

FOSS driver only, the choices are AMD and Intel. Nvidia is out of the picture.

Of coursenouveau drivers are still around and under active development, but as far as I know the performance if still very far from reasonable expectations.

If you don't want proprietary drivers the choice is quite straightforward: AMD. The official drivers are open source.

As for my experience, I've had absolutely no problems in the last few years with AMD, but I have to admit that I have always been using an iGPU, which has always been good enough for my needs.

I used to have problems with Nvidia proprietary drivers, but that was at least a couple years ago, things might have changed. I've never had issues with the free unofficial drivers, besides worse performance.

I bought an A-series Intel card (A310, bought for $110), and I'm very happy with it. Very good drivers that work perfectly with Wayland, and its recent OpenCL drivers now work with Blender and DaVinci Resolve too (despite Resolve saying that it only works with nvidia or amd, the new drivers make the dedicated intel cards work too). Gaming is not too bad either, but I don't game much.

Could be game specific, but there is no ground rendering in final fantasy. https://youtu.be/DxE-4ZxYxDA?si=ziYDWr5VAj7LV7hz

NVIDIA is more problematic than AMD on Linux. So AMD.

Do you play a lot of games with ray tracing, or do you care about that stuff? If you don't then AMD, it's better bang for the buck for rasterization and works better on Linux.

Only the kernel bindings are open source. The actual driver is still closed source. So that only leaves you with AMD and Intel.

Just to add some variation to these comments.

Nvidia works absolutely fine on (arch) linux, that needs to be said. Performance is on par with windows.

Depending on what your needs are its the better choice. (I have a few pieces of software that greatly rely on CUDA)

But the elephant in the room is your need for non proprietary driver. The only open source nvidia does is the strict minimum to catch up and stay competitive on linux (they where losing before). There is a clear winner on this front. Que all the other comments.

If those are your criteria, I would go with AMD right now, because only the proprietary driver will get decent performance out of most nVidia cards. Nouveau is reverse-engineered and can't tap into a lot of features of newer cards especially, and while I seem to recall there is a new open-source driver in the works, there's no way it's mature enough to be an option for anyone but testers.

AMD cards work great with the open source driver. As i understand it, the nouveau driver is getting better but might not be there yet? So if the non-proprietary driver is a must you might be better off with AMD.

Anything but Nvidia

Everyone's gonna suggest AMD here because of your requirement of no-proprietary drivers; but unless you're some sort of high-value target to a foreign government, I honestly choose the more pragmatic route of just using the proprietary NVidia driver and going NVidia. Especially if I'm not budget constrained on card.

The fact of the matter is, AMD has just simply fallen behind. NVidia cards are (and have been for like 3 generations now) more performant. There is good reason why they dominate the market right now; they're just simply better.

It really depends on how far you want to take your zealotry on open source; there are parts of the CPU microcode that can see everything you do. Those are proprietary. Your bios is proprietary. You're probably running 100 different proprietary blobs even IF you choose not to use the drivers that NVidia supplies; so why hobble yourself with a slower card that doesn't have CUDA instructions? (often also very good for AI work if you are interested in that at all)

I certainly understand wanting to push that direction for the sake of pushing that direction but - is performance and stability less important than using a proprietary driver?

if( you need CUDA ){ Use Nvidia (note that OSs officially supported by CUDA often use "old" versions of linux, like Debian 12 (6.1) or Fedora 39 (6.8), I personally use Arch); } else { Use AMD, you will have less problems and it'll probably be easier to setup; }

If you're on Linux AMD is clearly superior because NVidia has Linux performance issue compared to Windows so you're ending up paying more for less. However NVidia has the monopole for a reason their product are superior but at what price ? Also if you want to avoid proprietary drivers AMD gets the win too.

I do think AMD is the better option for anyone that spend less than 800-1'000$ on a GPU even for Windows gamers. Personnaly I have made the switch from NVidia to AMD 2 years after ditching Windows for Linux, Never looked back even though Cyberpunk2077 looks amazing on NVidia RTX and some other things.

I have upgraded last year to a RX 7800 XT and have no regrets on spending that money.

Why are you avoiding proprietary drivers? Will using them damage you in some way?

Until Intel and AMD figure out a way to deliver feature parity, the only factor is choosing a card should be "does it do the thing I need?". An example use-case for me is having CUDA cores for Blender renders.

I've been using Linux for 30 years, and (notwithstanding laptops that only had CPU graphics) I've used nVidia cards the entire time. I get the driver's from APT, and never had any issues.