Hey everyone,

I just bought a PC & play on getting a GPU in the near future.

However, I've heard mixed emotions about Nvidia on Linux. I'm wondering which one is best and which one plays nice with Linux?

I've heard people say their Nvidia cards don't work at all with Linux, so I'm wondering if these are just myths or what's the best approach.

I'm looking to upgrade my PC from the trusty RX 580 and Nvidia GPUs would seem like a good option if not for their infamy in Linux world. But most infamies and "accepted truths" generally lag behind for 3-10 years, as indicated by the general public's view of Linux on desktop as a whole and I am generally not as up-to-date on hardware scene as a whole as I would want to be.

Is Nvidia still as bad as I think it is (barely useable) or has it improved in the last N years to the point that it's viable again?

I found a post on here from two years ago talking about whether amd or nvida would be better for linux, as I am thinking of getting a new card soon, I was wondering what the current census was on the matter. Thank you for your time :3

Edit: Thank you all for your help and advice! Hope you all have a nice day!

For the first time since getting my 5090 on launch day, I was able to get it, a 4090 and all five monitors working with HDR and VRR enabled pretty much out of the box with Cachy. So that is a much better situation than in Q1 2025.

Only about 4 fours Linux game testing, but everything works in the games I tried thus far except HDR, hadn't really played with that in games yet. The games run well. But it is a little painful to see the performance hit. But then not.

Stellar Blade was the game I tested most as I also want to try mods with that game as they are simply just adding files and even that worked. Even performance was great like around 300 FPS with max 4k settings, 4x MFG. But the same settings on the same hardware Windows, 400 FPS.

I think this is one reason why nVidia on Linux can be a contentious issue. nVidia can be fine on Linux and get better performance than any AMD part at the high-end more demanding scenarios with RT and use of frame gen. But then you consistently take a performance hit relative to Windows.

TL;DR: nVidia is fine enough on Linux where you can get better performance and even features than AMD at the high-end. But then you take than same hardware and get even more performance with Windows.

Currently, got a 7800X3D, RTX 5080, SN850X SSD booting Pop OS for two weeks now.

The only AAA games that I've confirmed that runs better here in Linux is Red Dead Redemption 2 and Dying Light 1.

May I ask what more games besides Old or 2D (Silksong, Balatro, Hades and Vampire Survivors), AAA Games that looks good that would run better with my Nvidia GPU and the graphics are cracked all the way up?