# NVIDIA vs AMD video card on new desktop build?



## chessguy64 (Nov 26, 2022)

I'm thinking about building a new desktop PC, and I was wondering if anyone here has a preference based on what has been proven to work well and be reliable for them in FreeBSD. It will likely be a Ryzen 9 series cpu, with specs close +/- of a nvidia rtx 3070 for the video card. The sad thing is as great as FreeBSD is, I will probably have to be in Windows for some stuff, for software like 3D rendering / video editing and to try out some new games. But if I can make a purchase that is more compatible with FreeBSD, that'd be ideal. Also don't want to buy a card that isn't very compatible and performs worse with the OS. Any recommendations are appreciated.


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## Alain De Vos (Nov 26, 2022)

I use a separate very cheap passively cooled accelerated radeon card.

```
device     = 'Caicos [Radeon HD 6450/7450/8450 / R5 230 OEM]'
```
Works perfect with Windows & FreeBSD.


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## steps (Nov 26, 2022)

I have a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in my desktop. It runs perfectly with x11/nvidia-driver. We even have vulkan support now. NVidia has never let me down on FreeBSD.


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## meine (Nov 26, 2022)

I choose an Intel graphics on my newest box, because it is easier to configure for me. Just put `kld_list="${kld_list} i915kms"` in your /etc/rc.conf and it works.

Must confess that I mainly do text processing and some surfing, no heavy graphical.



> wondering if anyone here has a preference based on what has been proven to work well and be reliable for them in FreeBSD



My preference and it works well, reliable on FreeBSD.


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## chessguy64 (Nov 26, 2022)

meine said:


> I choose an Intel graphics on my newest box, because it is easier to configure for me. Just put `kld_list="${kld_list} i915kms"` in your /etc/rc.conf and it works.
> 
> Must confess that I mainly do text processing and some surfing, no heavy graphical.



seriously ? Yeah if I wanted to do stuff that didn't require any gpu power at all I'd just stick with the nvidia card I have now. Not sure why ppl are posting here that their old stuff works, when I stated specs and that I'm building new. I'm not spending $2000+ to use intel i915 lol.


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## Styrsven (Nov 26, 2022)

Since FreeBSD 13.1 now has AMDGPU support from linux kernel 5.10, I looked in the table in the Gentoo wiki when deciding on an AMDGPU card.
I use a RX 5600 XT card with good results.
I think this page contains some AMD equivalents to rtx 3070 that exist in the Gentoo table.


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## Alain De Vos (Nov 26, 2022)

Yeah the GPU charts for FreeBSD need an update.


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## gotnull (Nov 27, 2022)

My AMD RX Vega 64 is working without any trouble and I am glad it's supported by FBSD. Sure It's an old 5 years card but it's well enough for what I do, my next card will probably be something like an RX 6600 or RX 6700 when the driver will be available for FBSD but I am not in hurry.
If I want to play games I reboot to Win10 and that's it.
I don't try to convert an OS to something it can't handle, it's a wasting time for everybody and that's not what I want it to do anyway.

From my point of view what meine suggested is probably not as useless as you think it is, you could buy a CPU with an APU included that you can use with FBSD while having a GPU that you will use with Windows or Linux for whatever that need its graphic power.
I don't know if some users here do that, it's just an idea.


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## astyle (Nov 27, 2022)

I think RX 6900/6800 XT is the most recent AMD card supported under FreeBSD, by the `sienna_cichlid` driver... (I have a 6900 XT, and got it running - but anything newer would be trouble).


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## gotnull (Nov 28, 2022)

astyle said:


> I think RX 6900/6800 XT is the most recent AMD card supported under FreeBSD, by the `sienna_cichlid` driver... (I have a 6900 XT, and got it running - but anything newer would be trouble).


Nice it's good to know, I wasn't aware that some cards from the RX6000 series were already supported.
Are you on 13.1 or 14 current ?


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## astyle (Nov 28, 2022)

gotnull said:


> Nice it's good to know, I wasn't aware that some cards from the RX6000 series were already supported.
> Are you on 13.1 or 14 current ?


13.1 on the rig that has the 6900XT... BTW, it _seems like_ 6700XT, 6600 XT, 6500 XT and 6400 XT are just too new for `sienna_cichlid`...


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## gotnull (Nov 29, 2022)

wow the support was quick for the flagship, I am a bit surprised tbh, in the good way.
Yeah for the rest of the RX 6000 series it will be another story as they came few months after, but I have good hope they will be ready for FBSD14.


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## Carbonbasedlifeform#7 (Tuesday at 2:14 PM)

astyle said:


> I think RX 6900/6800 XT is the most recent AMD card supported under FreeBSD, by the `sienna_cichlid` driver... (I have a 6900 XT, and got it running - but anything newer would be trouble).


Can you help me out with how you got it running?
I have a Powercolor RX 6800 Fighter and when I kldload amdgpu after both the driver and firmware were installed (using both ports and pkg) my screen looses signal and goes black.  sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu fixes nothing. I have to go back in single user and comment it out so can have a shell.
Fresh install of 13.1
pkg ins x11/xorg
port and pkg install graphics/drm-510-kmod
port and pkg install graphics/gpu-firmware-amd-kmod  FLAVOR=sienna_cichlid
sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu
Reboot and I get a black screen.
Am I missing a step?


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## astyle (Tuesday at 4:18 PM)

Carbonbasedlifeform#7 said:


> Can you help me out with how you got it running?
> I have a Powercolor RX 6800 Fighter and when I kldload amdgpu after both the driver and firmware were installed (using both ports and pkg) my screen looses signal and goes black.  sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu fixes nothing. I have to go back in single user and comment it out so can have a shell.
> Fresh install of 13.1
> pkg ins x11/xorg
> ...


For starters, if you get a black screen, I'd double-check the cables and hardware connections. It is a very heavy card, I had to buy a separate GPU supporter to avoid sagging. 

Also, I'm personally leery of using `sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu`... I open up /etc/rc.conf  in nano, and add a line by hand: `kld_list="/boot/modules/amdgpu.ko"`.  My reason for that is that last time I tried this (take a look at the dates on earlier posts), the _installation_ part was a bit messy and unverified. Doesn't look like the situation has improved since...

Also, in my case, it really helped to have that line be the very last one in /etc/rc.conf - even though others on the Forums said it shouldn't matter.

One more thing: Can you SSH into your rig from elsewhere? if you can, that will save a LOT of pain with rebooting into single/multi-user modes.


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## SirDice (Tuesday at 4:25 PM)

astyle said:


> Also, in my case, it really helped to have that line be the very last one in /etc/rc.conf - even though others on the Forums said it shouldn't matter.


rc.conf is a shell script that only contains variables, it gets sourced multiple times when executing the rc(8) scripts. The order in which those variables are defined is irrelevant, except when you try to declare the same variable more than once, then only the last deceleration is the actual value of that variable.


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## Carbonbasedlifeform#7 (Wednesday at 3:07 AM)

astyle said:


> For starters, if you get a black screen, I'd double-check the cables and hardware connections. It is a very heavy card, I had to buy a separate GPU supporter to avoid sagging.
> 
> Also, I'm personally leery of using `sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu`... I open up /etc/rc.conf  in nano, and add a line by hand: `kld_list="/boot/modules/amdgpu.ko"`.  My reason for that is that last time I tried this (take a look at the dates on earlier posts), the _installation_ part was a bit messy and unverified. Doesn't look like the situation has improved since...
> 
> ...


Greetings.
I've double checked everything that I can think of.
Fresh install of FreeBSD 13.1 with all the correct steps to get my AMD graphics working and when it loads the module, graphics fail. Screen flickers like it going to load and that is as far as it goes. Monitor goes black and the no signal box appears.
All penguin distros work out of the box.
Dragonfly and OpenBSD work.
I was hoping that maybe I had just overlooked something simple.
Does it need linux compatibility enabled? I just assumed it doesn't.


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## SirDice (Wednesday at 9:18 AM)

Carbonbasedlifeform#7 said:


> Does it need linux compatibility enabled? I just assumed it doesn't.


You assumed correctly, the driver doesn't need it.


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