Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
Entry level AMD card from 2010 performs nearly on par with GTX 970?!?
Elvanex Mar 10, 2018
So today, I finally received my new graphics card... I'm replacing my nvidia gtx 970 with an amd hd 5750. I am thoroughly shocked at how well this little beast performs... It's definitely still a downgrade, but not by nearly as much as I was expecting. For example, in CS:GO I would get ~120-180 fps with my 970. With the hd 5750, I'm getting ~70-100 fps. And that's the biggest gap in any game I've tested so far. Some games are actually performing almost on par with the 970. In Mount and Blade: Warband, a custom battle with max battle size would run at about 40 fps with my 970. With the 5750, I'm getting a minimum of about 30. Considering that the 5750 came out in 2010, and was an entry level card even then, it should not be performing even close to the 970 which came out in 2014 as a mid-high end solution. Is the Linux nvidia driver really that crippled, or are amd cards actually that good? I'm just so confused as to what's happening... lol. For reference, both cards were paired with an i5 760, and 8GB of RAM.

(Note: 970 was using the 390.x proprietary drivers. 5750 was using whatever Solus provides out of the box.)
lucinos Mar 10, 2018
Quoting: ElvanexFor reference, both cards were paired with an i5 760, and 8GB of RAM.

this is for sure not just a reference. It is quite important as a first gen i5 is for sure a bottleneck for the gtx 970. I would still expect bigger gap (kudos for mesa!) but the gtx needs a better cpu.
Samsai Mar 10, 2018
Yup, this is more likely due to the CPU. The 5750 simply doesn't have the hardware capability to keep up with something like a 970. If you ran some GPU benchmarks (Unigine for example) you'd probably see a fairly massive performance gap between the two cards. Similarly very GPU intensive games will have a performance gap that you might not see with games like CSGO and M&B which are very much CPU bound.
Elvanex Mar 10, 2018
Interesting. I knew the cpu was a bottleneck, but I guess I just never realized by how much. Oh well. :) I got it (the cpu) together with a motherboard at a Goodwill for $3. The 5750 cost me about $40 on ebay. Combined with some spare RAM, a PSU, and a hard drive, I built this computer for under $50. :) Also, from the looks of things, I should be able to sell my 970 for around $200 on ebay. I'd say for a net total of -$150, I can't really complain. lol. :)
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
Login / Register


Or login with...
Sign in with Steam Sign in with Google
Social logins require cookies to stay logged in.