Hey this maybe a stupid question. I am considering on buying a GPU. I am in conflict between nvidia and AMD. I know AMD works better on linux in general but I am curious to follow the NVIDIA advancements as they go with the new open source kernel modules and stuff… I don’t know if it is worth it to pick team green over team red. Also typically performance will be better with NVIDIA on compute and stuff like that.

P.S.

Yes, this is related to the previous post I made here.

  • data1701d (He/Him)
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    26 days ago

    AMD unless you’re actually running AI/ML applications that need a GPU. AMD is easier than NVidia on Linux in every way except for ML and video encoding (although I’m on a Polaris card that lost ROCm support [which I’m bitter about] and I think AMD cards have added a few video codecs since). In GPU compute, Nvidia holds a near-dictatorship, one which I don’t necessarily want to engage in. I haven’t ever used an Intel card, but I’ve heard it seems okay. Annecdotally, graphics support is usable but still improving for gaming. Although its AI ecosystem is immature, I think Intel provides special Tensorflow/Torch modules or something, so with a bit of hacking (but likely less than AMD) you might be able to finagle some stuff into running. Where I’ve heard these shine, though, is in video encoding/decoding. I’ve heard of people buying even the cheapest card and having a blast in FFMPEG.

    Truth be told, I don’t mess with ML a lot, but Google Colab provides free GPU-accelerated Linux instances with Nvidia cards, so you could probably just go AMD or Intel and get best usability while just doing AI in Colab.

      • data1701d (He/Him)
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        26 days ago

        I’ve heard of people coercing even my graphics card, an RX 580. However, I avoid generative AI for ethical reasons and also because Microsoft is trying to shove it down my throat. I really hope that copyright law prevails and that companies will have to be much more careful with what they include in their datasets.