How do older Nvidia GPUs hold on under linux?

[hybrid vault]

I want to get some low profile graphics card for my sff pc, the PSU doesn't have any additional power connectors so I'm stuck with 75W max of TDP delivered from motherboard. Searching through markets, there are very few AMD gpus and everything else is Nvidia all along.

My question being - how do older nvidia gpus like 600 or 700 series work under linux? Did anyone have any experience with them or daily drives them? Any problems with "legacy" drivers?

Or maybe You have a better ideas, like saving up for a GTX 1650 or RX 6400?

[cold moth]

I have old GTS 450 and it worked normally

[gaunt nova]

it is not so difficult to "google" things : https://graphicscardhub.com/best-low-profile-graphics-card/

[faint nebula]

Older nvidia GPUs should generally work well if the supported opengl and vulkan versions (very important for dxvk) are recent enough

Older amd GPUs, especially some mobile GPUs have trouble due to bad vulkan support and lack of opensource drivers on newer kernels

Hope hope this helps

[hybrid vault]

of course I looked through sites like these, the thing is markets in my country are flooded with nvidia products mostly and I've heard many weird opinions about their compatibility under linux, especially models that aren't officially supported anymore (Kepler and older), I've heard amd works way better out of the box

I myself didn't manage to get 550ti working properly in the past so it probably requires some more playing and tweaking

[faint nebula]

Try to get an amd gpu after 2016 cause my laptop is from 2016 and it doesn't have an amd gpu driver afaik

[gaunt nova]

maybe this helps : https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/

[viral oak]

You shoudl avoid out of support nvidia hardware after ~10 years the newest drivers which include not only features but fixes for bugs wont be available anymore within a few more you can no longer run official drivers and new kernels

nouveau also isn't getting as much love with actually open source nvidia drivers a work in progress and head dev I think retired from the project

[gaunt nova]

seems, that this is last driver version that supports GT 730 : https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/226760/

Release Date: Tue Jun 04, 2024

[viral oak]

yes 470 is old and eventually 470 will cease to be available with present kernels and devices will have to fall back to nouveau or run old software

Notably after my nvidia 1080 fried itself I'm currently using a 770 myself until I can get a new one installed

works ok but haven't raelly tried gaming with it

[gaunt nova]

why it did fried ?

[viral oak]

well I live in a multi story apartment building and there is no dust filter on the heat so its very dusty and the one fan was situated not directly over the block but with an air channel in between block and fan I blew the dust periodically but it had become clogged so that little air was getting between fan and block

those plastic shrouds are often a challenge

[gaunt nova]

i have PC with only white led on, and power button does nothing. maybe i have also dust in some connectors

[hybrid vault]

after reading all of this conversation and doing some internet research, I could go with either RX 6400 or RTX 3050, both low profile as I'm TDP limited to 75W

theoretically rtx 3050 is more efficient but nvidia drivers on linux seem either risky or if anything, it still loses performance compared to windows, also it's more expensive

So probably RX 6400 LP will be the best choice, right?

[viral oak]

Yes

[hybrid vault]

I just realised one bad thing

RX 6400 has cut lanes so it will perform like dogpoo on PCIe 3, which is present on my motherboard

so 3050 would still be way better

[viral oak]

looks like its less performant than GTX 1650 let alone 3050

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6400-pci-express-30-scaling/12.html