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Between EVGA getting out of the Nvidia card business, Nvidia continuing to be problematic under Linux (even if that’s improving), all the nonsense with the new

Between EVGA getting out of the Nvidia card business, Nvidia continuing to be problematic under Linux (even if that’s improving), all the nonsense with the new power connector, and the company’s general sliminess, I’m increasingly leaning towards an AMD (or potentially Intel) card for my next tower upgrade. AMD and Intel might only be competing in the entry-to-midrange market sector but my needs aren’t likely to exceed what RX 8000 or next-gen Intel cards are capable of anyway.

Insanity 2y ago
I am tempted to try the new Intel GPU as an upgrade for my current ~5yo build. I don’t need something high end, and I don’t need any AI stuff. But I use a dual boot Windows/Linux, and I am a bit worried about how it will behave under Linux.
- bjoli 2y ago
  Intel is by far the best out of the box experience under linux. I have 3 cards. I will get one of the new battlmage cards for my gaming pc. Edit: the only downside is that the hw h265 encoder is pretty bad. Av1 is fine though
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    I don’t have any experience with discrete Intel cards, but yes their iGPUs have been flawless for me under Linux. Same for other components, to the point that I’d say a reasonable way of gauging how well a laptop will work with Linux is to look at how much of its hardware is Intel (CPU excluded). Intel wifi/bluetooth and ethernet are also great under Linux for example.
  - Uw5ssYPc 2y ago
    I was reading that Intel GPU firmware cannot be upgraded under Linux, only Windows, is that still the case?
  - aqfamnzc 2y ago
    What does a "pretty bad" h265 implementation look like? Buggy? Inefficient or what?
    - bjoli 2y ago
      The h265 quality is just not up to par. The av1 encoder does a nice enough job, so does the h264 one.
    - a_vanderbilt 2y ago
      Encoded media either comes out blocky, with artifacts, or plain old slow. Some also have bugs related to the encoder that app developers have to contend with.
    - wtallis 2y ago
      Video encoders can vary widely in quality. There are lots of parameters that allow for a wide range of "correct" encodings of the same source video file. Realtime hardware encoders in general have lower visual quality for the same bitrate than software encoders that may be slower but more thoroughly search through different options for encoding each group of frames. Decoding is much more deterministic, so speed and power efficiency are the main ways hardware decoders can differ.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
AMD's 7xxx series cards were almost universally worse than their 6xxx equivalents. AMD cut memory bus width and reduced compute units, all in a quest to reduce power consumption because they're so power-hungry. They're still not as good as NVIDIA cards for power consumption. The drivers are unreliable, Adrenalin is buggy, slow, and bloated; AMD's cards have poor raytracing, and AMD's compute is a dumpster fire, especially on Windows; ROCm is a joke. None of the LLM or Stability Matrix stuff works on AMD GPUs under Windwos without substantial tweaking and even then it's unreliable garbage, whereas the NVIDIA stuff Just Works. If you don't care about any of that and just want "better than integrated graphics", especially if you're on Linux where you don't need to worry about the shitshow that is AMD Windows drivers - then sure, go for AMD - especially the cards that have been put on sale (don't pay MSRP for any AMD GPU, ever. They almost always rapidly discount.) AMD simply does not have the care to compete with NVIDIA for the desktop market. They have barely a few percent of the desktop GPU market; they're interested in stuff like gaming consoles. Intel are the only ones who will push AMD - and it will push them to either compete or let their product line stagnate and milk as much profit out of the AMD fanboys as they can.
evoke4908 2y ago
I made that choice several years ago. All new PCs I buy/build are AMD only. The hardware is a bit finnicky, but honestly I prefer a thing to just be broken and tricky as opposed to nvidia intentionally making my life hard.
einpoklum 2y ago
I wish I could say that was a realistic alternative for compute work (and on workstations and servers rather than consumer PCs). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it - both in terms of the hardware offering (AFAICT), and ecosystem richness. Which is really a shame; not because AMD are saintly, but because NVIDIA have indeed indeed been slimey and non-forthcoming about so much, for so long.
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
AMD has inexplicably decided not to invest in software. Just like car manufacturers don't realize that a shitty infotainment system can keep people from buying the $100k car, AMD doesn't seem to realize that people aren't buying a GPU for ML if their ML framework doesn't run on it... And this goes down to consumer drivers too. I've sworn to myself that I'm not buying AMD for my next laptop, after endless instability issues with the graphics driver. I don't care how great and cheap and performant and whatever it is when I'm afraid to open Google Maps because it might kernel panic my machine.
- freedomben 2y ago
  I have AMD in my desktop and my laptop and it has been pretty good under Linux (I use Fedora) the past year or two. AMD definitely was late to the game, and I still don't think they care as much as they should, but they are definitely working on it. I've been easily running GPU accelerated Ollama on my desktop and laptop through ROCm. AMD is definitely not perfect but I don't think it's fair to say they decided not to invest in software. Better late than never, and I'm hoping AMD learned their lesson.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
    I thought they finally learned their lesson... then they cancelled the funding of ZLUDA... then they seem to have gone back on an agreement and demanded the open sourced version to be taken down. The years it took them to get their Linux drivers into a usable shape are another issue.
- ramon156 2y ago
  How long ago was this? I bought an AMD laptop this year and it's been great with both windows and Linux. I can't say the same for my Nvidia pc ...
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
    I think it went away either with Ubuntu 23.10 or 24.04 - but I don't know if they actually fixed it or just changed something random that masks the bug for now, only to come back with the next kernel version (I've had that issue before). Given that the issue (or variants thereof, because there were at least 10 different workarounds to try) was somewhat widely reported, the time it took to get this fixed far exceeded anything I would consider tolerable.
TiredOfLife 2y ago
EVGA also significantly reduced warranty on their PSUs. Changed PSU components without changing model number.

Insanity 2y ago

I am tempted to try the new Intel GPU as an upgrade for my current ~5yo build. I don’t need something high end, and I don’t need any AI stuff. But I use a dual boot Windows/Linux, and I am a bit worried about how it will behave under Linux.

bjoli 2y ago
Intel is by far the best out of the box experience under linux. I have 3 cards. I will get one of the new battlmage cards for my gaming pc. Edit: the only downside is that the hw h265 encoder is pretty bad. Av1 is fine though
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  I don’t have any experience with discrete Intel cards, but yes their iGPUs have been flawless for me under Linux. Same for other components, to the point that I’d say a reasonable way of gauging how well a laptop will work with Linux is to look at how much of its hardware is Intel (CPU excluded). Intel wifi/bluetooth and ethernet are also great under Linux for example.
- Uw5ssYPc 2y ago
  I was reading that Intel GPU firmware cannot be upgraded under Linux, only Windows, is that still the case?
- aqfamnzc 2y ago
  What does a "pretty bad" h265 implementation look like? Buggy? Inefficient or what?
  - bjoli 2y ago
    The h265 quality is just not up to par. The av1 encoder does a nice enough job, so does the h264 one.
  - a_vanderbilt 2y ago
    Encoded media either comes out blocky, with artifacts, or plain old slow. Some also have bugs related to the encoder that app developers have to contend with.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    Video encoders can vary widely in quality. There are lots of parameters that allow for a wide range of "correct" encodings of the same source video file. Realtime hardware encoders in general have lower visual quality for the same bitrate than software encoders that may be slower but more thoroughly search through different options for encoding each group of frames. Decoding is much more deterministic, so speed and power efficiency are the main ways hardware decoders can differ.

KennyBlanken 2y ago

AMD's 7xxx series cards were almost universally worse than their 6xxx equivalents. AMD cut memory bus width and reduced compute units, all in a quest to reduce power consumption because they're so power-hungry. They're still not as good as NVIDIA cards for power consumption. The drivers are unreliable, Adrenalin is buggy, slow, and bloated; AMD's cards have poor raytracing, and AMD's compute is a dumpster fire, especially on Windows; ROCm is a joke. None of the LLM or Stability Matrix stuff works on AMD GPUs under Windwos without substantial tweaking and even then it's unreliable garbage, whereas the NVIDIA stuff Just Works. If you don't care about any of that and just want "better than integrated graphics", especially if you're on Linux where you don't need to worry about the shitshow that is AMD Windows drivers - then sure, go for AMD - especially the cards that have been put on sale (don't pay MSRP for any AMD GPU, ever. They almost always rapidly discount.) AMD simply does not have the care to compete with NVIDIA for the desktop market. They have barely a few percent of the desktop GPU market; they're interested in stuff like gaming consoles. Intel are the only ones who will push AMD - and it will push them to either compete or let their product line stagnate and milk as much profit out of the AMD fanboys as they can.

evoke4908 2y ago

I made that choice several years ago. All new PCs I buy/build are AMD only. The hardware is a bit finnicky, but honestly I prefer a thing to just be broken and tricky as opposed to nvidia intentionally making my life hard.

einpoklum 2y ago

I wish I could say that was a realistic alternative for compute work (and on workstations and servers rather than consumer PCs). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it - both in terms of the hardware offering (AFAICT), and ecosystem richness. Which is really a shame; not because AMD are saintly, but because NVIDIA have indeed indeed been slimey and non-forthcoming about so much, for so long.

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago

AMD has inexplicably decided not to invest in software. Just like car manufacturers don't realize that a shitty infotainment system can keep people from buying the $100k car, AMD doesn't seem to realize that people aren't buying a GPU for ML if their ML framework doesn't run on it... And this goes down to consumer drivers too. I've sworn to myself that I'm not buying AMD for my next laptop, after endless instability issues with the graphics driver. I don't care how great and cheap and performant and whatever it is when I'm afraid to open Google Maps because it might kernel panic my machine.

freedomben 2y ago
I have AMD in my desktop and my laptop and it has been pretty good under Linux (I use Fedora) the past year or two. AMD definitely was late to the game, and I still don't think they care as much as they should, but they are definitely working on it. I've been easily running GPU accelerated Ollama on my desktop and laptop through ROCm. AMD is definitely not perfect but I don't think it's fair to say they decided not to invest in software. Better late than never, and I'm hoping AMD learned their lesson.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  I thought they finally learned their lesson... then they cancelled the funding of ZLUDA... then they seem to have gone back on an agreement and demanded the open sourced version to be taken down. The years it took them to get their Linux drivers into a usable shape are another issue.
ramon156 2y ago
How long ago was this? I bought an AMD laptop this year and it's been great with both windows and Linux. I can't say the same for my Nvidia pc ...
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  I think it went away either with Ubuntu 23.10 or 24.04 - but I don't know if they actually fixed it or just changed something random that masks the bug for now, only to come back with the next kernel version (I've had that issue before). Given that the issue (or variants thereof, because there were at least 10 different workarounds to try) was somewhat widely reported, the time it took to get this fixed far exceeded anything I would consider tolerable.

TiredOfLife 2y ago

EVGA also significantly reduced warranty on their PSUs. Changed PSU components without changing model number.