A similar question was raised some day’s ago from a other person, but with different background. In this case, I would like to buy a nice gaming laptop. Of course I would use it for office and coding to, but primary I’m searching recommendations for gaming. I would like to play Wine/Proton game’s and also native Linux games. As OS, I like to use Manjaro Gnome.
Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…
As others have already (somewhat) alluded to; it’s best to buy a laptop from a company that offers devices on which Linux users are first-class citizens. Therefore, any device that specifically fits your needs (hardware-wise) from either NovaCustom, Star Labs, System76, Tuxedo etc should fit the bill. Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Nvidia GPUs have a known bad track record on Linux. The possibility exists that you won’t even notice it on any of the devices sold by any of the aforementioned vendors. However, I’d argue it’s still mindful to be cautious.
Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…
AMD has been doing very good for some time and the fact that the Steam Deck is powered by AMD is very telling of what the current status quo is. However, I don’t think it’s a hard requirement. Sure, going full-AMD has it’s merits, but you should be fine regardless.
Last year’s Asus Zephyrus G14 is a full AMD computer and should work fine on Linux: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-zephyrus/rog-zephyrus-g14-2022-series/
The upcoming Framework Laptop 16 has a replaceable Radeon graphics card. Looks very promising: https://frame.work/products/laptop16-diy-amd-7040
Don’t touch ones with an NVidia GPU. Linux drivers from NVidia suck.
I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…
Which games exactly? Many popular multiplayer FPS games don’t work on Linux, due to the anticheat software employed by them.
See: https://areweanticheatyet.com/?search=&sortOrder=desc&sortBy=status
I keep hearing this from people but as someone who plays a lot of multiplayer FPS the only game I’ve had to give up is Rust.
Even most EAC games seem to work if the developers allow Proton/Wine users.
You probably don’t play garbage games then, like Fortnite, PUBG, Valorant, Destiny 2 etc. These, while garbage, are unfortunately very popular, which is why you keep hearing about why popular FPS games may not work in Linux.
Fortnite
One of these is not like the others
But it’s crazy that Epic buys EAC then makes it Linux compatible only for them to not use it
Please don’t laugh, this probably doesn’t really fall into that category, but I wanted to keep it simple: Ark - Survival Evolved, Counter Strike but also games like Space Engineers. Ark causes relatively few problems. Space Engineers, on the other hand, does. Unlike Ark, it currently runs with very few FPS and often crashes or doesn’t start at all. In general, I play more when I have time in the evening for 1 or 2 hours, comfortably on the sofa. So the laptop is more suitable.
I’m buying a Framework 16 without the GPU because I’m more in the market for a 7800M when that comes out
But I’ll be doing integrated meanwhile, it’s quite powerful
What does a GPU do ? Is graphics card same as GPU?
Basically. Graphics card theoretically is referring to the entire removable part on a desktop that has the GPU, power delivery, memory, cooling, etc, but in practice they’re used interchangeably and mean the same thing.
In casual conversation, GPU and graphics card are interchangeable.
When being technical, the GPU is the chip itself, the only part that is made by Nvidia or AMD or Intel, while the graphics card is the entire circuit board/chip/components/heat sink/fan assembly. It’s a bit like the CPU in the motherboard, they’re just not sold separately.
That’s in desktop computers. Laptops usually don’t have a “graphics card.” Laptops that have a dedicated GPU it’s usually permanently attached to the motherboard. The Framework 16 mentioned above is a modular laptop, and will have removable GPU modules.
It’s the same thing
they do very parallelized workloads like 3d rendering
System76 has laptops with Linux preinstalled, so they may be a good option to check. https://system76.com/laptops-powerful I have not personally owned one yet, but I’ve heard some good things about them. Other people may have more input though.
Kind of surprising they’re using nvidia over amd
I asked about this to a system76 employee and what he told me was that nvidia with CUDA is still much better for several professional use cases and because of that, they still prefer using nvidia
It does seem they lean pretty hard into the Intel/Nvidia combo, hopefully that will change in the future. I do appreciate the option of prepackaged Nvidia drivers for Pop though. Makes running my old laptop so easy!
PopOS has an Nvidia-specific version.
I have one, they are good but you can generally get better quality for less with Dell or Lenovo. Where System 76 shines is its customer support: they are responsive, helpful and knowledgeable. This, plus the fact that popOS is a damn fine Linux distro expressly tuned to their machines, largely makes up for the fact that it might be a bit more expensive than the alternatives. Regarding gaming, I can’t really say… I’ve played a few steam games on it but they’re not the type that require much firepower. Still, no problem there.
Good to know. Which model do you have? I’ve been eyeing up something along the lines of the Pangolin when I next upgrade. I’ve been a fan of Pop for some time, and I’m currently running it on my three main computers. It’s great on my Dev One and I’ve also got it on an older Alienware laptop. Their customer support is pretty good, I contacted them about information on a keyboard a while back and it seemed they knew what they were doing.
It’s a Ryzen 7 Pangolin, I bought it almost 2 years ago.
Thanks!
Friend of mine bought a Pangolin, anything to watch out for?
I had my cpu fan die after a year, so maybe that. They replaced it really fast though.
A few more details would go a long way in offering actually helpful recommendations.
- What is your budget?
- Without that, I’m just going to recommend the highest end possible machine, which may be unaffordable to you.
- What country are you in?
- There could be an amazing deal on right now, but only for US residents; this won’t help you if you don’t live there.
I’m looking for a US deal under $3000. Most of what I’ve seen of this year’s models is selling near MSRP still.
- What is your budget?
Tuxedo sells some gaming capable laptops with Linux preinstalled as well. I have an older one, always worked well.
For software there is this, preinstalled for best OOTB gaming compatibility https://universal-blue.org/images/bazzite/
I had no problems with Tuxedo but I would recommend a work laptop and a gaming desktop
Laptops age incredibly fast due to heat
AMD has the better graphics cards, CPU wise Intel has caught up so look for the cheaper equivalent
List the games you want and we can tell you compatibility, if you just want FPS games then I get my fix from Plutonium (older COD games)
I am very happy with my ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402RJ. It’s small, powerful, not too expensive, has a recent AMD GPU (RX6800S) / CPU (Ryzen 9 6900), upgradeable RAM, good resolution, and a gorgeous screen (great for photo development too).
I’m seeing others recommend the G14 2022 all-AMD one. I have owned this model since it released and use it nearly every day. Despite the performance being pretty okay, it does have its share of deal-breakers which, if I knew them at the time, I would not have bought it:
- random freezing, this affects some units most zen3 amd laptops and it seems I got unlucky. ASUS has been ignoring the issue for a year despite the crashes being reproducible on Windows (Windows recovers from it while Linux just freezes)
- short stutters due to fTPM. Hopefully once Arch updates the kernel to include the recent patch that blacklists all AMD fTPMs fixes this, for now you have to email ASUS to get a secret BIOS that allows disabling it
- nonfunctional vfio (code 43) without patching BIOS variables with a sketchy script (have to disable rebar), rebinding after shutting down the vm still does not work at all for me
- overheating while gaming, even with fans forced to max
- wifi constantly disconnects. I mostly fixed it by buying a AX210 card from Intel
- bottom shell is super brittle and cracked when unscrewing it
The laptop itself would be the best Linux experience I’ve had if not for these issues. The trackpad is excellent and great for Wayland 1:1 gestures, the display and speakers are great, and the battery lasts a good 2-3h with light web browsing.
Indeed. The laptop is great exception for QA issues. I have some of those issues but not some others.
An extremely annoying thing that happens to me you didn’t mention is when I’m using the integrated GPU sometimes the screen flickers.
And if it matters my unit at least doesn’t overheat at all. It’s actually quite impressive.
yeah. Own an Asus with Nvidia. Can confirm having the same experience.
Dell gaming laptops are decent for the price and might get a discount if you have the preinstall Ubuntu (since you’re not buying Windows)
I was looking for a smaller (14" and not bulky) gaming Laptop, and ended up with the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X. And I’m very happy with it; feels fairly future proof with 32GB of Ram and runs NixOS like a champ.
Only has a GTX 3050 though, so it’s not for the highest end gaming, but that’s never been my priority anyway, it runs BG3 quite well and that’s the beefiest thing I’ve thrown at it.
I picked up a 2022 G14 RX6700s about a week ago from Beat Buy for $750. I added a 32GB memory stick to bring it up to 40GB. I also replaced the SSD with a 2TB 980 Pro. Since it’s all AMD it works without any futzing. I’m running openSUSE Tumbleweed and so far it all just works. Sleep, dual GPU’s, everything. I did add the AMD P-State flag which helped battery life tremendously. Even sleep just worked out of the box which is the first time I’ve ever had that experience.
My normal workload runs MS SQL Server in a docker container, two distroboxes for specific software, Outlook and Teams PWA apps, VSCode, Azure Data Studio, Firefox, and a couple of terminals windows, and it sits at about 8.5GB of memory idle. With Bluetooth connected and streaming YouTube Music and doing development I’m able to get about 7-8 hours of battery life.
I only play D3, D4, World of Warships, and Guild Wars 2. It plays those games without any issue even at 4K. I do recognize those games aren’t Starfield, so keep that in mind. For me, it works great and it been the easiest experience with Linux I’ve had.
At least with Tumbleweed. I tried Pop_OS! first and it worked great, until launching games on Steam froze X11 and required me jumping to a TTY screen to kill everything. So far Tumbleweed with Distrobox is giving me the best of everything and I’m loving it.
a 2022 G14 RX6700s about a week ago from Beat Buy for $750
That sounds like a very good deal. (For context to other readers: It’s the Asus notebook I recommended in my reply as well.)
I added a 32GB memory stick to bring it up to 40GB.
An Intel WiFi card is apparently also a good investment.
As someone who uses a fairly cheap gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GPU: I would advise against NVIDIA. I’ve successfully gotten mine to work, but it’s been a hassle. If you can avoid it, do so.
