Hey guys. I've had my rig up and running for a little over a year, but there is a need emerging for doing more Linux desktop work, and I need a GPU for that.

 

So I'm looking for suggestions. When i've previously tried this with an Nvidia GTX 970, the results left a lot to be desired. A lot of unstable behavior, and difficulties with drivers.

 

I'm not sure if there are inherent problems with Nvidia cards in unRAID VM setups, or if this was something else, but I'm looking for suggestion for a cheap GPU to put in that provides decent driver support for Linux (Fedora in particular). The only physical requirement is DP1.2 output, because I daisy chain my monitors.

There are two things to consider when passing through a GPU to a Linux VM.

1. The GPU needs to be capable of being passed through to a VM

2. The GPU needs to be supported under Linux

 

To find an answer to (1), these forums are a good place to start. In my experience, NVIDIA GPUs have fewer issues with GPU pass-through. I use an NVIDIA Quadro K2200 and a GTX 1060 without issue - they are very stable. I haven't tried recent AMD GPUs though.

 

As for (2), phoronix.com has lots of information on GPU support under Linux. Typically AMD GPUs have much better open-source Linux driver support. This means that the GPU will be detected correctly and just work when installing Linux. If you choose NVIDIA, then you *will* want to install the nVidia binary drivers. This is quite easy on well-known modern Linux distros (e.g. Ubuntu, Mint, openSUSE). The problem you are most likely to have is a 'black screen' on boot (look up 'nomodeset' if this affects you), which makes installing anything difficult!

 

So the reason this might be a tricky decision is because the answer to (1) is NVIDIA, and to (2) is AMD!