{"video_id":"u8Xyx2L4Nlg","title":"What GPU is the BEST for Linux Gaming?","channel":"Linus Tech Tips","show":"Linus Tech Tips","published_at":"2026-02-03T14:53:45Z","duration_s":655,"segments":[{"start_s":3.12,"end_s":10.719,"text":"You know what? I'm done. Between forced updates, bloatware, AND AI FEATURES THAT","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":8.32,"end_s":17.84,"text":"NOBODY asked for. I mean, what in heaven's name are you doing, son?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":14.719,"end_s":20.16,"text":"He's not dead. He just needs the right","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":17.84,"end_s":26.24,"text":"medicine. But I have an NVIDIA GPU. Isn't that a sin? According to Reddit,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":23.199,"end_s":28.48,"text":"maybe it is true that the mere mention","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":26.24,"end_s":33.28,"text":"of NVIDIA in a Linux forum can start an argument. But when Lennis Torvoltz, the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":31.359,"end_s":38.719,"text":"man himself, was here, he mentioned that Linux and NVIDIA have somewhat mended","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":36.399,"end_s":43.68,"text":"the relationship now that NVIDIA is balls deep in the AI bubble and [music]","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":40.719,"end_s":49.92,"text":"needs Linux developers on their side. Which raises the question, is AMD still","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":46.8,"end_s":52.079,"text":"the best GPU choice for Linux? And where","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":49.92,"end_s":56.559,"text":"does Intel [music] land? To find out, we spent weeks testing. And I don't just","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":54.32,"end_s":61.359,"text":"mean FPS numbers. I'm talking setup process and day-to-day usability, too.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":58.879,"end_s":66.08,"text":"Now, as you might expect, AMD does remain a very strong choice. But you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":63.68,"end_s":71.28,"text":"MIGHT BE SHOCKED, SHOCKED, I SAY, when you see how far the others, especially","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":68.64,"end_s":76.159,"text":"certain ones, have come. What never shocks anyone anymore, though, is my","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":73.439,"end_s":79.84,"text":"segways to our sponsor, Play Tracker. They keep all your gaming achievements","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":77.84,"end_s":84.32,"text":"in one place. It tracks all of your performance and stats across multiple","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":81.84,"end_s":88.479,"text":"games on multiple platforms and lets you compare and compete against friends. Try","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":86.64,"end_s":91.72,"text":"Play Tracker for free using our link down below.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":94.321,"end_s":96.341,"text":"[music]","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":99.36,"end_s":106.079,"text":"Before we get into the results, let's talk about the setup process. We chose","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":103.119,"end_s":111.439,"text":"these five GPUs to represent both recent and slightly older gaming cards from the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":108.399,"end_s":114.399,"text":"main brands and also Intel was there. As","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":111.439,"end_s":120.079,"text":"for our DRO, our original plan when this was an article on ltlabs.com was good","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":117.28,"end_s":125.119,"text":"old Ubuntu 2404LTS or long-term support. Why that one?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":122.88,"end_s":130.16,"text":"Well, while there are numerous more gaming focused dros like Bazite or Steam","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":128.0,"end_s":134.56,"text":"OS, we decided to approach this experiment with the idea that we wanted","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":131.84,"end_s":140.08,"text":"a stable, userfriendly, wellsupported desktop experience that can also game.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":138.319,"end_s":143.68,"text":"Maybe we should do a video going through Linux gaming dros, though. Comment which","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":142.0,"end_s":147.12,"text":"ones that you guys would want to see. Right out of the gate, we ran into a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":145.28,"end_s":152.4,"text":"problem that will likely be familiar to any Linux early adopter. Driver [music]","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":149.52,"end_s":157.519,"text":"support. Out of our five GPUs, four of them failed to work out of the box. Some","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":154.56,"end_s":161.76,"text":"were easy fixes. For the 460Ti, Ubuntu has a driver on their additional drivers","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":159.519,"end_s":167.04,"text":"page, and after a short reboot, it worked flawlessly. But the 5060 Ti, that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":165.28,"end_s":170.4,"text":"was a bit of a different story. See, back when we originally did this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":168.4,"end_s":175.36,"text":"testing, Ubuntu didn't have a driver for it at all. Meaning, we had to settle for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":172.959,"end_s":180.4,"text":"the official driver from NVIDIA, which if you ask any Linux head, they're going","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":177.36,"end_s":183.44,"text":"to tell you is a big no no. As for our","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":180.4,"end_s":185.92,"text":"Radeon 970, it too was lacking bakedin","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":183.44,"end_s":190.64,"text":"drivers, and AMD hadn't yet rolled out their official installer. Finally, the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":188.08,"end_s":194.0,"text":"Arc B580 appeared to be working until the moment we fired up a game, and it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":192.239,"end_s":198.4,"text":"showed its true colors. Turns out that the easiest fix was to use Kubuntu,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":196.159,"end_s":202.48,"text":"which uses the KDE desktop environment rather than Gnome. Of course, all of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":200.319,"end_s":207.28,"text":"these issues have since been resolved. Yay, open source. So, what's the point","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":205.92,"end_s":211.76,"text":"of bringing them up? Well, we said we'd talk about the experience, and it turns","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":209.12,"end_s":217.44,"text":"out that for us, the bottom line is that it comes down less to which brand of GPU","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":214.72,"end_s":222.799,"text":"you choose and more down to the age and the exact timing. The easiest fix across","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":220.48,"end_s":228.159,"text":"the board for all of them was simply to move off of LTS and use Ubuntu 25, which","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":226.4,"end_s":231.76,"text":"just uses a newer version of the Linux kernel that had bakedin support for all","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":230.08,"end_s":237.28,"text":"of our cards. With everything up and running, how's the day-to-day life?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":233.68,"end_s":239.84,"text":"Well, this is where things get totally","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":237.28,"end_s":244.48,"text":"fine. Actually, most people these days, except for you, Dave, and by the way,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":242.239,"end_s":248.56,"text":"you are so good at using computers, do a huge percent of their work in a browser.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":246.56,"end_s":253.36,"text":"Google Docs, Teams, support tickets, even some design work can now be done","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":250.56,"end_s":257.84,"text":"fully within a browser. And even for the work that isn't, some combination of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":255.68,"end_s":262.56,"text":"Linux alternative software, virtual machines, or remote desktop applications","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":260.4,"end_s":266.0,"text":"could probably allow most people to make the switch. Of course, the day-to-day","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":264.4,"end_s":269.52,"text":"usability of Linux is not the point of this video. The point of this video is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":267.68,"end_s":275.36,"text":"the difference in that experience between our various cards. And I kind of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":273.04,"end_s":278.479,"text":"hate to say it, but it's kind of a draw. Again, I know that's not very","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":276.96,"end_s":282.8,"text":"satisfying, and I'm sure that you would much rather that I praise the corporate","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":280.72,"end_s":287.6,"text":"brand that you love and bash the one that you really hate. But Lin Torvalds","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":285.28,"end_s":292.4,"text":"himself is doing his day-to-day work right now on an Intel arc. Not because","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":290.479,"end_s":296.88,"text":"of how special it is compared to the other options, but because for his work,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":294.479,"end_s":300.639,"text":"it just plain didn't matter that much. He actually cared more about how quiet","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":298.479,"end_s":305.28,"text":"the cooler was. With that said, there will be some huge exceptions to this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":303.44,"end_s":308.72,"text":"depending on the software you use. There could be major differences in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":306.88,"end_s":314.32,"text":"performance, compatibility, and stability. But which card works best for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":311.84,"end_s":318.88,"text":"training LLMs or whatever, that's beyond the scope of this video. Which brings us","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":315.84,"end_s":320.56,"text":"to the big question. What about the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":318.88,"end_s":324.72,"text":"games? Now, before we show you the numbers, it's important to understand","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":322.08,"end_s":328.56,"text":"that our usual testing software doesn't work quite the same across Windows and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":326.8,"end_s":333.52,"text":"Linux. That's why we stuck to simple in-game benchmarking tools. Also, for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":330.96,"end_s":338.72,"text":"that reason, we can't draw a definitive conclusion about exactly how the Linux","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":336.72,"end_s":343.6,"text":"and Windows performance compares to each other. What we can do is get a broad","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":341.12,"end_s":348.32,"text":"impression, and we can say that across all of our three brands, if you were","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":345.759,"end_s":352.639,"text":"hoping for a big win for Linux, unfortunately, that still isn't the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":350.24,"end_s":358.96,"text":"case. Across the board, we saw lower performance on Linux at 1080p, both with","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":355.68,"end_s":360.639,"text":"and without rate tracing, and at 1440p.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":358.96,"end_s":365.44,"text":"Of course, that's not the question that's most on our minds right now.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":362.8,"end_s":369.44,"text":"Rather, we want to know which GPU maker loses the least performance switching","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":368.0,"end_s":375.12,"text":"over to Linux. Starting with [music] Intel, the B580 was about 30% worse on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":373.12,"end_s":379.759,"text":"average. That means that most of your games are going to run a full class of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":377.28,"end_s":384.479,"text":"card worse. And you might even find outliers like what we saw with Dota 2","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":382.08,"end_s":389.6,"text":"that are frankly unacceptable. I mean, look at this. This game has a native","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":387.36,"end_s":393.6,"text":"Linux build. That means no Proton compatibility layer and yet it's getting","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":391.6,"end_s":398.0,"text":"barely over half of the performance compared to Windows. As for NVIDIA,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":395.68,"end_s":401.44,"text":"well, things got a little spicy here to say the least. Do you remember I","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":399.68,"end_s":406.56,"text":"mentioned that our original article tested on Ubuntu 24? Well, in that test,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":404.16,"end_s":410.479,"text":"the older 4060 Ti was still within striking distance of our Windows tests","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":408.4,"end_s":416.8,"text":"in a fair number of our games. Some were further off, but was pretty close. As","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":413.28,"end_s":419.52,"text":"for our 5060Ti, I mean, it is a faster,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":416.8,"end_s":425.36,"text":"better card, but the difference between Windows and Linux was about 30% just","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":422.479,"end_s":429.599,"text":"like we saw with Intel. Yikes. Though not as yikes as the internet might have","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":427.36,"end_s":434.88,"text":"you believe. What is as yikes is the fact that upgrading to Ubuntu 25 for the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":432.639,"end_s":439.919,"text":"retesting that we did for this video saw an overall regression in Linux","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":437.199,"end_s":444.16,"text":"optimization across both of our NVIDIA cards. or I don't know, maybe they tuned","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":442.479,"end_s":449.28,"text":"the Windows drivers to be even better. All I can say for sure is that NVIDIA","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":446.56,"end_s":453.84,"text":"could use just a few of their trillions of dollars to do a little bit better","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":451.28,"end_s":458.319,"text":"here. Bringing us finally to AMD end. Well, it won't be a huge surprise to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":456.479,"end_s":462.0,"text":"many of you, but it turns out that if you let open- source folks do open","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":460.16,"end_s":467.039,"text":"source things with your drivers, you might get better open-source performance","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":464.319,"end_s":472.16,"text":"with some games like Cyberpunk 2077 seeing almost no performance loss and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":469.84,"end_s":477.919,"text":"even some outliers like Strange Brigade on our RX970 that actually performed","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":475.199,"end_s":482.639,"text":"better on Linux. For gaming, then AMD emerges once again as a clear winner.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":479.919,"end_s":489.52,"text":"So, if we factor that in, let's see here. We've got AMD wins gaming.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":485.36,"end_s":492.16,"text":"Everything else is a draw. AMD wins.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":489.52,"end_s":496.24,"text":"Or do they? Our final test was to throw a couple of different dros into the mix","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":494.16,"end_s":500.8,"text":"because, let's face it, our entire comments section would be complaining if","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":497.759,"end_s":503.68,"text":"we didn't. Since AMD came out on top, we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":500.8,"end_s":510.479,"text":"wanted to see how our RX7700 XT would handle Basite, Mangaro, Ubuntu 25, and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":507.52,"end_s":514.159,"text":"Ubuntu 24 across three games. And what we found was that there was functionally","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":512.399,"end_s":518.08,"text":"no difference between the three, which I got to say is honestly a really good","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":516.08,"end_s":523.519,"text":"thing. I think the last thing that the Linux community wants is a war over","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":520.8,"end_s":527.519,"text":"which DRO performs the best for gaming. There's already enough of a war over the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":525.76,"end_s":531.76,"text":"ease of use of gaming across various distros or the unique value propositions","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":529.92,"end_s":536.16,"text":"that they offer from pre-installed applications and features or slick UIs","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":534.64,"end_s":543.2,"text":"for organizing your favorite retro titles. So, in conclusion, then AMD","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":539.839,"end_s":546.32,"text":"wins, but it's also totally valid to go","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":543.2,"end_s":547.92,"text":"Linux on any GPU hardware. In fact, I","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":546.32,"end_s":552.08,"text":"think it's fair to say that for most people out there, it really doesn't","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":550.0,"end_s":556.64,"text":"matter that much. Certainly, it doesn't matter enough that you should wait until","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":554.64,"end_s":559.92,"text":"you can afford a new GPU before you take the Linux plunge. If you're interested","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":558.32,"end_s":564.08,"text":"in jumping ship from Windows, you're not alone right now. And I think that your","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":562.08,"end_s":567.68,"text":"bigger roadblocks are going to be around settling on a DRO that suits you and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":566.32,"end_s":571.04,"text":"getting all of your devices and workflows running. But the good news is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":569.36,"end_s":574.48,"text":"that there's an ever growing number of resources out there for new users. And","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":573.2,"end_s":577.6,"text":"we're going to link some of those below for you guys to take a look at. One way","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":576.24,"end_s":583.12,"text":"or another, the year of the Linux desktop is getting ever closer. And","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":580.08,"end_s":585.2,"text":"arguably, I would say is even today for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":583.12,"end_s":590.399,"text":"people that mostly work inside a browser or would rather give up a little bit of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":588.0,"end_s":594.16,"text":"performance than put up with Windows's Just like you're going to put","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":592.32,"end_s":598.0,"text":"up with this segue [music] to our sponsor, Play Tracker. You know","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":596.08,"end_s":601.839,"text":"what time of year is always a hoot? Spotify rap season. There's just","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":599.92,"end_s":605.44,"text":"something satisfying about seeing what music and moods you experience","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":603.6,"end_s":609.44,"text":"throughout the year. Well, Play Tracker is kind of like that, but for gaming. It","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":607.76,"end_s":613.04,"text":"works across multiple consoles and platforms. As you play games throughout","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":611.12,"end_s":616.88,"text":"the year, you earn experience, unlock rewards, and show it all off in a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":614.959,"end_s":620.56,"text":"customizable user profile. It's more than just gamifying gaming, though.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":618.72,"end_s":624.32,"text":"There's a fun social element to it as you compete against your friends,","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":622.24,"end_s":628.64,"text":"regardless if they prefer console or computer. Or if you prefer friendship","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":626.32,"end_s":631.76,"text":"over rivalry, you can create parties to share the credit for overcoming","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":630.16,"end_s":636.8,"text":"obstacles together. Plus, there are giveaways for when you complete challenges or you clear up your gaming","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":634.64,"end_s":640.72,"text":"backlog. Try Play Tracker for free today by using our link down below. If you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":639.12,"end_s":645.279,"text":"guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the collab that we did with the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":642.959,"end_s":649.76,"text":"Linus Torvtz, creator of the Linux kernel. He actually ended up going with","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":1},{"start_s":647.6,"end_s":654.0,"text":"an Intel ARC for his new computer and even talked a bit about how NVIDIA and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":652.0,"end_s":656.48,"text":"Linux are getting along quite a bit better these","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0}],"full_text":"You know what? I'm done. Between forced updates, bloatware, AND AI FEATURES THAT NOBODY asked for. I mean, what in heaven's name are you doing, son? He's not dead. He just needs the right medicine. But I have an NVIDIA GPU. Isn't that a sin? According to Reddit, maybe it is true that the mere mention of NVIDIA in a Linux forum can start an argument. But when Lennis Torvoltz, the man himself, was here, he mentioned that Linux and NVIDIA have somewhat mended the relationship now that NVIDIA is balls deep in the AI bubble and [music] needs Linux developers on their side. Which raises the question, is AMD still the best GPU choice for Linux? And where does Intel [music] land? To find out, we spent weeks testing. And I don't just mean FPS numbers. I'm talking setup process and day-to-day usability, too. Now, as you might expect, AMD does remain a very strong choice. But you MIGHT BE SHOCKED, SHOCKED, I SAY, when you see how far the others, especially certain ones, have come. What never shocks anyone anymore, though, is my segways to our sponsor, Play Tracker. They keep all your gaming achievements in one place. It tracks all of your performance and stats across multiple games on multiple platforms and lets you compare and compete against friends. Try Play Tracker for free using our link down below. [music] Before we get into the results, let's talk about the setup process. We chose these five GPUs to represent both recent and slightly older gaming cards from the main brands and also Intel was there. As for our DRO, our original plan when this was an article on ltlabs.com was good old Ubuntu 2404LTS or long-term support. Why that one? Well, while there are numerous more gaming focused dros like Bazite or Steam OS, we decided to approach this experiment with the idea that we wanted a stable, userfriendly, wellsupported desktop experience that can also game. Maybe we should do a video going through Linux gaming dros, though. Comment which ones that you guys would want to see. Right out of the gate, we ran into a problem that will likely be familiar to any Linux early adopter. Driver [music] support. Out of our five GPUs, four of them failed to work out of the box. Some were easy fixes. For the 460Ti, Ubuntu has a driver on their additional drivers page, and after a short reboot, it worked flawlessly. But the 5060 Ti, that was a bit of a different story. See, back when we originally did this testing, Ubuntu didn't have a driver for it at all. Meaning, we had to settle for the official driver from NVIDIA, which if you ask any Linux head, they're going to tell you is a big no no. As for our Radeon 970, it too was lacking bakedin drivers, and AMD hadn't yet rolled out their official installer. Finally, the Arc B580 appeared to be working until the moment we fired up a game, and it showed its true colors. Turns out that the easiest fix was to use Kubuntu, which uses the KDE desktop environment rather than Gnome. Of course, all of these issues have since been resolved. Yay, open source. So, what's the point of bringing them up? Well, we said we'd talk about the experience, and it turns out that for us, the bottom line is that it comes down less to which brand of GPU you choose and more down to the age and the exact timing. The easiest fix across the board for all of them was simply to move off of LTS and use Ubuntu 25, which just uses a newer version of the Linux kernel that had bakedin support for all of our cards. With everything up and running, how's the day-to-day life? Well, this is where things get totally fine. Actually, most people these days, except for you, Dave, and by the way, you are so good at using computers, do a huge percent of their work in a browser. Google Docs, Teams, support tickets, even some design work can now be done fully within a browser. And even for the work that isn't, some combination of Linux alternative software, virtual machines, or remote desktop applications could probably allow most people to make the switch. Of course, the day-to-day usability of Linux is not the point of this video. The point of this video is the difference in that experience between our various cards. And I kind of hate to say it, but it's kind of a draw. Again, I know that's not very satisfying, and I'm sure that you would much rather that I praise the corporate brand that you love and bash the one that you really hate. But Lin Torvalds himself is doing his day-to-day work right now on an Intel arc. Not because of how special it is compared to the other options, but because for his work, it just plain didn't matter that much. He actually cared more about how quiet the cooler was. With that said, there will be some huge exceptions to this depending on the software you use. There could be major differences in performance, compatibility, and stability. But which card works best for training LLMs or whatever, that's beyond the scope of this video. Which brings us to the big question. What about the games? Now, before we show you the numbers, it's important to understand that our usual testing software doesn't work quite the same across Windows and Linux. That's why we stuck to simple in-game benchmarking tools. Also, for that reason, we can't draw a definitive conclusion about exactly how the Linux and Windows performance compares to each other. What we can do is get a broad impression, and we can say that across all of our three brands, if you were hoping for a big win for Linux, unfortunately, that still isn't the case. Across the board, we saw lower performance on Linux at 1080p, both with and without rate tracing, and at 1440p. Of course, that's not the question that's most on our minds right now. Rather, we want to know which GPU maker loses the least performance switching over to Linux. Starting with [music] Intel, the B580 was about 30% worse on average. That means that most of your games are going to run a full class of card worse. And you might even find outliers like what we saw with Dota 2 that are frankly unacceptable. I mean, look at this. This game has a native Linux build. That means no Proton compatibility layer and yet it's getting barely over half of the performance compared to Windows. As for NVIDIA, well, things got a little spicy here to say the least. Do you remember I mentioned that our original article tested on Ubuntu 24? Well, in that test, the older 4060 Ti was still within striking distance of our Windows tests in a fair number of our games. Some were further off, but was pretty close. As for our 5060Ti, I mean, it is a faster, better card, but the difference between Windows and Linux was about 30% just like we saw with Intel. Yikes. Though not as yikes as the internet might have you believe. What is as yikes is the fact that upgrading to Ubuntu 25 for the retesting that we did for this video saw an overall regression in Linux optimization across both of our NVIDIA cards. or I don't know, maybe they tuned the Windows drivers to be even better. All I can say for sure is that NVIDIA could use just a few of their trillions of dollars to do a little bit better here. Bringing us finally to AMD end. Well, it won't be a huge surprise to many of you, but it turns out that if you let open- source folks do open source things with your drivers, you might get better open-source performance with some games like Cyberpunk 2077 seeing almost no performance loss and even some outliers like Strange Brigade on our RX970 that actually performed better on Linux. For gaming, then AMD emerges once again as a clear winner. So, if we factor that in, let's see here. We've got AMD wins gaming. Everything else is a draw. AMD wins. Or do they? Our final test was to throw a couple of different dros into the mix because, let's face it, our entire comments section would be complaining if we didn't. Since AMD came out on top, we wanted to see how our RX7700 XT would handle Basite, Mangaro, Ubuntu 25, and Ubuntu 24 across three games. And what we found was that there was functionally no difference between the three, which I got to say is honestly a really good thing. I think the last thing that the Linux community wants is a war over which DRO performs the best for gaming. There's already enough of a war over the ease of use of gaming across various distros or the unique value propositions that they offer from pre-installed applications and features or slick UIs for organizing your favorite retro titles. So, in conclusion, then AMD wins, but it's also totally valid to go Linux on any GPU hardware. In fact, I think it's fair to say that for most people out there, it really doesn't matter that much. Certainly, it doesn't matter enough that you should wait until you can afford a new GPU before you take the Linux plunge. If you're interested in jumping ship from Windows, you're not alone right now. And I think that your bigger roadblocks are going to be around settling on a DRO that suits you and getting all of your devices and workflows running. But the good news is that there's an ever growing number of resources out there for new users. And we're going to link some of those below for you guys to take a look at. One way or another, the year of the Linux desktop is getting ever closer. And arguably, I would say is even today for people that mostly work inside a browser or would rather give up a little bit of performance than put up with Windows's Just like you're going to put up with this segue [music] to our sponsor, Play Tracker. You know what time of year is always a hoot? Spotify rap season. There's just something satisfying about seeing what music and moods you experience throughout the year. Well, Play Tracker is kind of like that, but for gaming. It works across multiple consoles and platforms. As you play games throughout the year, you earn experience, unlock rewards, and show it all off in a customizable user profile. It's more than just gamifying gaming, though. There's a fun social element to it as you compete against your friends, regardless if they prefer console or computer. Or if you prefer friendship over rivalry, you can create parties to share the credit for overcoming obstacles together. Plus, there are giveaways for when you complete challenges or you clear up your gaming backlog. Try Play Tracker for free today by using our link down below. If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the collab that we did with the Linus Torvtz, creator of the Linux kernel. He actually ended up going with an Intel ARC for his new computer and even talked a bit about how NVIDIA and Linux are getting along quite a bit better these"}