Quoting: chancho_zombie@Xpander

of course nvidia drivers solution is less than ideal, if I want to run a newer kernel than the default (4.12) on OpenSuSe, then getting the packages from the Nvidia repo will not work. That's what I was referring to.

I mean really?? they only provide support for the (ancient) 4.12 kernel on OpenSUSE?? it must be a bad joke, I like to run old kernels but not _that_ old, the 4.19 lts branch is already point 58 release. Is that the best NVIDIA can do??

Nvidia has a repo for tumble weed that supports the newest kernels. https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/tumbleweed/.

I myself think nvidia is the better option as at least a few major linux ports of games don't support AMD cards

Quoting: randomgamerguy1997I myself think nvidia is the better option as at least a few major linux ports of games don't support AMD cards

Used not to support. That was mostly fixed already by Mesa developers - they explicitly asked to collect such list and worked on fixing those cases. Those were mostly low quality ports, that lost support from original developers soon after release.

See:

* https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Mesa_Broken
* https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Games_with_recent_fixes_in_Mesa

If you know something that still doesn't work and not in the first list above, please add it.

Thank you all so much for the great comments! I have been away for a few days so I haven't had the chance to post earlier.

You have given me a lot of information I haven't had before. It still is a tough decision!

It will for sure become a Ryzen based machine, as far as I know, and a midrange card. I will post the decision here shortly. Thank you all again!

After looking at the prices and all that, I think an RX580 is indeed a good choice. I haven't seen a better card for that price. And if there are no huge differences anymore, compatibility wise and regarding driver support, it might be well worth it to give it a try.

I will keep you updated about it and some testing results I will be doing, comparing it to my own 1050 Ti.

Thank you again for all the info, you are awesome.

Be careful about the brand though, some 580 cards have issues regarding cooling and noise.
If I may, give Sapphire cards a try, I have a Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ and it behaves really well, review here: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3323380/sapphire-radeon-rx-590-nitro-review.html
If you can find one of these (they go for similar prices) go for it.

As for AMD/Nvidia drivers, really, you'll be fine fine with both, don't listen to the banter.
If you go for Nvidia I would suggest the GTX 1660 ti, is the second best in terms of performance per dollar.

Some numbers regarding temperatures, power consumption and performance per dollar for both cards:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-gtx1660ti-linux&num=7