The Best, Most Efficient Graphics Cards For 1080p Linux Gamers

Lastly, a look at the overall system power consumption while running all of the OpenGL performance tests.

Well, those were the tested games at 1080p where the modern graphics cards weren't all purely CPU bound. Coming up this weekend will be the results at 2560 x 1440 with the same hardware/tests and followed by potentially updated 4K/UHD numbers.

At 1080p, the GeForce GTX 950 at $150 USD can play a number of modern games at above 60 FPS. The GTX 950 is a bargain for Linux gamers who just casually play not too demanding titles. However, if you're actively playing a number of the latest Steam Linux games, the GeForce GTX 960~970 mark the best position for 1080p gamers. The higher-end graphics cards will be more beneficial at the greater resolutions, as shown in the next article, or if wanting to future-proof your system for a while.

If you are into AMD hardware and use Catalyst, well, hopefully you just watch loops of Unigine Valley all day or stick to older, non-graphically demanding games, even if you bought the $550 USD Radeon R9 Fury. The R9 Fury with its Fiji HBM GPU even gets embaressed next to the GeForce GTX 950, due to the poor state of AMD's OpenGL Catalyst Linux driver. Games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are playable with higher-end AMD graphics cards, but if you're going for a new graphics card to purchase, you're better off waiting for either a miracle Catalyst Linux driver release or some months until the open-source RadeonSI/AMDGPU driver stack is into a more mature state. At least the open-source AMD driver is making greater progress these days than the seldom Catalyst Linux updates, but it will still be a few months before more of its OpenGL 4.2~4.4 support gets squared away.

As a reminder, you can see the similar GPU comparison with open-source drivers from earlier in the week. It's a very different game between the open and closed-source Linux driver options. And please take a moment to think about Phoronix Premium if you would like to support all of the effort spent on this Linux hardware testing and other coverage provided exclusively at Phoronix.