Hey guys, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this (feel free to point me to a better community) but I’m in a weird “predicament” this summer: My AMD build plans are in shambles after receiving a free ROG Astral 5080.
Now I want to make the switch now with my current (Intel i7-13700K) hardware + this new card. I was only considering AMD before but it’s really hard to say no to a video card worth more than my entire budget lol
The slightly worse performance compared to Windows is still an upgrade from my 3070 so that’s fine - It’s initial/recurring troubleshooting I don’t really want to deal with. Most of the info I’ve found is from earlier this year and no one speaks highly of the beta drivers
Sorry if this is a stupid question but am I setting myself up for disappointment with this new plan? I have a few more related questions I’ll toss in the comments but that’s my main concern.
Couple of followup questions…
I didn’t expect to switch so soon so I’m just now deciding. I’m currently torn between Pop OS and Mint. I don’t think I want steamOS because gaming is only half of what I use my PC for - I’d rather a more desktop-oriented distro
My only Linux experience is a few servers and laptops over the years but I’m comfortable following along with CLI tutorials
90% of my games are on a secondary 2tb NVME. I have a home server I can back them up them up to before reformatting but I’m guessing I can’t just point Steam to that folder and have it rebuild my library, right?
Conventional wisdom used to be pairing Intel with Nvidia and AMD with AMD. Is that still the case? Should I stick to Intel?
Ubuntu and derivatives. (I prefer Kubuntu, personally. It has even more support for things like HDR) I have a 3070 RTX and it’s working just fine in Kubuntu.
Good question! I would definitely back up the files first and reformat in EXT4 or BTRFS or whatever. Then when you install the games in Steam with the compatibility layer, you can specify where to install the games. Then check where saved games/profiles are located and possibly overwrite the files?
Yes. No doubt.
Does Kubuntu come as “preconfigured” as the more gaming-focused distros? I’ve heard one of the benefits of those is that a lot of the GPU stuff (drivers, config) works out of the box
Redownloading games isn’t a big deal, I just don’t want to take the time to make space and transfer it if it’s gonna freak out lol
It’s been so long since I installed mine that I forget.
I remember there being an option to download and install additional drivers during the installation. Otherwise, it’s a very simple process. As you can see here:
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-nvidia-drivers-on-ubuntu-24-04
On Ubuntu there’s literally an application for additional drivers. On Kubuntu, I think you have to used the command line because Canonical only prioritizes their Gnome desktop. Kubuntu is a community-driven flavour. However, once you know which driver is recommended, you can use the graĥical software installer to install it.
Good because SteamOS doesn’t want you. It’s AMD only at the moment.
Linux Mint is generally fine. But with bleeding edge hardware sometimes it’s better to be on a newer distro that gets driver updates more often. But that largely depends on if you have any issues with the current drivers. I don’t have any 50 series hardware to test to see what sort of issues there are. That said Nvidia has been making some good progress with their drivers after hiring Ben Skeggs.
Ah well that makes it easier!
Good call about the updates. I read a bit about the release schedules and assumed I’d want the “more stable” release schedules but that’s a good point about using new hardware.
Good to know about the drivers, too! All of the performance comparisons I read this morning were from earlier this year and Linux was behind by quite a bit with Nvidia.
Ubuntu and it’s derivatives have the best Nvidia support.