My current system has a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, an RTX 5070 Ti, and a 2TB Samsung 990 NVMe drive. I mainly play at 1440p ultrawide or 4K on an LG C3, with games like Armored Core 6 and Black Myth: Wukong occasionally taking up my limited gaming time. I probably only game a few hours per week and cap most games around 120 FPS.
I've been interested in switching to CachyOS, and selling the 5070 Ti while prices are high could leave me with roughly a hundred dollars or so after buying an RX 9070 XT. I don't need the money, but I'm wondering whether the Linux experience and AMD driver support would make the switch worthwhile. How much worse are the drivers and overall experience in Windows, and would I be giving up too much performance or features for my use case?
4 Answers
The 9070 XT is a good 1440p card and should provide a solid experience, but I wouldn’t call it an upgrade from a 5070 Ti. At 4K you’ll likely want some form of upscaling, and Nvidia has an advantage in DLSS and certain games. Black Myth: Wukong also tends to favor Nvidia hardware, so check benchmarks for the games you actually play before deciding.
Driver experiences are mixed. Some people run AMD cards on Linux or Windows without any problems, while others have dealt with crashes, browser hardware-acceleration issues, or driver timeouts. Nvidia generally offers the safer choice for features and game compatibility, but AMD’s Linux support can be attractive if that is your main goal. I wouldn’t switch expecting a performance upgrade; do it only if the operating-system experience matters more to you than keeping the fastest, most feature-rich card.
I’ve used both brands and haven’t had browser or video problems with AMD, so those reports aren’t universal. A lot depends on the specific driver version and setup.
I’d probably keep the 5070 Ti. After selling fees and the trouble of arranging a sale, the difference may only be around $100. The 5070 Ti also gives you DLSS and generally stronger ray tracing and feature support, so it should remain useful for longer. Downgrading now could mean replacing the GPU sooner.
There shouldn’t be much in the way of fees for me, but I agree that ending up with only about $100 may not justify the effort.
If you barely game and don’t need CUDA, switching could make sense, especially if you find a discounted 9070 XT. You could wait until you have a good buyer for the 5070 Ti and then swap cards. For someone who spends most of their time on a Mac and only games a few hours a week, the 9070 XT should still be plenty capable.
That’s pretty much where I’m at. The computer mostly sits unused, so I’m not seeing a huge benefit from keeping the Nvidia card beyond avoiding the hassle.
Wukong was just an example of what I’ve been playing recently, and I only spend two or three hours a week gaming. That’s why the Linux advantages are more appealing to me than maximizing performance.