[Pre-Install] Graphics card and driver for 26.04

[oldgeek]

I am currently using 24.04 but would like to upgrade later on. The problem is my Nvidia GeForce 730 graphics card, which uses the Nvidia 430 driver. I understand this driver is no longer supported by Nvidia, and besides it doesn't work on Wayland anyway, from my own experience. So I guess I'll have to upgrade my card unless I want to stay on X11, which is being supported any more. My question, is there a Nvidia card which works on Wayland and has the same basic characteristics of my current video card? Any recommendations? I presume 26.04 will automatically find the correct Nvidia driver. I do not do any gaming, except for Universe Sandbox and Space Engine, which no longer works on Linux, but I do watch videos. I appreciate any help, as I don't want to upgrade until I have the necessary hardware.

[INVICTRA]

Try the live CD with the open source nouveau driver. That should have a working desktop experience in 26.04. Its not good for games tho. If that works you can then install plasma-session-x11 and change settings for the login manger SDDM to use X11 instead of Wayland. So just have Plasma 6.6 on X11 for now.

I think they plan to remove X11 in Plasma 6.8.


And what characteristics of your GeForce 730 do you need. Is it the single-slot limitations or the VGA output?
I would get a GeForce GT 1030 (which will soon be 10 years old). It has no VGA output but it works with Nvidia 580 driver. I had solid Wayland experience on my retired Gigabyte GTX 1080 Ti Aorus Extreme.

[oldgeek]

I tried the Nouveau driver awhile back and didn't like it. But I will check out the GT 1030, as I'm sure my store has it. By characteristics I meant the memory in the card. Do I need VGA output? Excuse my ignorance, but I don't know what that's for. It seems like something for an older screen, but I'm only guessing. Thanks for answering and for your help.

[INVICTRA]

I understand now. Your GeForce 730 is from the 2014. This means that anything you buy today will be better and will work better in Linux. The only thing you should care about is to take a picture of your monitor connectors. So that at the store they know what cable fits to your graphic card (There are 4 types: VGA, DVI, HDMI, DP).

But if you have the money I would go for something better. I asked AI to make a ranking list.

[manull]

I tried the Nouveau driver awhile back and didn't like it. But I will check out the GT 1030, as I'm sure my store has it. By characteristics I meant the memory in the card. Do I need VGA output? Excuse my ignorance, but I don't know what that's for. It seems like something for an older screen, but I'm only guessing. Thanks for answering and for your help.

1030 bad work on wayland if use 4k monitor.

[claydoh]

The card to suggest *might* also depend on the actual PC or motherboard/cpu as well, though I don't think any on the list here would have problems. Not 100% sure, though. Power supply needs , both the PSU power needs and if it has the connectors (if any of these need them), are my main thoughts here, if this is an older PC of the same vintage as the 730.

And an AMD rx580, (or rx480) which is 9 years old and should just work ootb, for the budget end, and is stronger than a gt 1030

[Hendrixx]

I have a similar query to yours (and a graphics card too), which is why I’ve been wondering whether to start a new thread or add it here, so I’ll post my query here and perhaps we can both clarify things, along with anyone else reading the thread (I see that’s already happening).
I agree about the Nouveau driver. I had to uninstall it because my browser would freeze from time to time, and sometimes the whole session would crash. In the end, I installed the Nvidia 470.256 driver and it hasn’t happened since.

In my case, I have a GF 710 2GB GDDR3 graphics card, 16GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM, and an i5-4460 3.2GHz processor on an Asus H81M-C motherboard. Will it soon become obsolete for use with future versions of Kubuntu?

From what I can see, for version 26.04 this graphics card I have is a bit ‘limping’, something I’d already had in mind because I’m planning to change my monitor, and although it’s not a major limitation for what I do (the most demanding task is running a couple of VMs), the refresh rate this graphics card allows is already falling short for QHD 2560x1440 monitors.
Several graphics cards have already been suggested, but I’d still appreciate any thoughts on whether it’s worth investing in a better graphics card, or if it’s better to start thinking about upgrading my computer when possible. Thanks in advance.


Cheers

[INVICTRA]

Hendrixx That is a good question. The entry/basic PC system of today is being rapidly replaced by miniPCs. I myself love them. In this case a graphic card is not needed because the integrated one is great.
Your i5-4460 CPU is comparable to a 150€ MiniPC (after inflated AI hardware shortages this now costs 300€).

A cheap NEW modern system will be about 700€ in the EU without a graphics card. So if you must buy today because of the new monitor then just get the graphic card now and buy the system in 1-2 years when the AI craze cools off and we get affordable prices again.

For the graphic card I would lean to a AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT. For Linux it is the best. Low Mid Range Class. The downside is that it is a gaming card 1st and is expensive 350€. And this things are big. They occupy Dual-Slots and need extra external PCI-E Power connectors from the PSU. I realize this might be overkill for you.
Intel Arc A310 is a good future cheap choice. It should support 4k 120Hz HDR content. This one is for those high expensive resolution displays that you might one day buy. But the card itself is relatively cheap.
The key here is that is has modern DisplayPort 2.0 and HDMI 2.1 video outputs.


For anyone that is interested I like to push for miniPCs for the low-end spender. They are small and cheap. Consume 25-65W Power only. They have less parts that can be upgraded but I myself am in a situation where I don't do much upgrades anymore. I just buy a new PC after 7-10 years.

GMKtec NucBox M8 - AMD Ryzen™ 5 PRO 6650H - 16GB RAM +512GB SSD - 360€
GMKtec NucBox K8 Plus - AMD Ryzen™ 7 8845HS - 32GB RAM +1TB SSD - 680€

[oldgeek]

Hmmm, a lot to think about. I have a further question. I have a laptop with AND processor and graphics card (7000) and have been running 25.10 without problems (haven't upgraded yet). But my desktop computer uses this CPU: 12 X Intel Core i5-10400 2.90 GHz, and I also have 16 Gb memory (no SSDs on this system). Would an AND graphics card be compatible with this setup? I live in Peru, so it may not be so easy to get one of these. Thanks again for all the help.

[Hendrixx]

Hendrixx That is a good question. The entry/basic PC system of today is being rapidly replaced by miniPCs. I myself love them. In this case a graphic card is not needed because the integrated one is great.
Your i5-4460 CPU is comparable to a 150€ MiniPC (after inflated AI hardware shortages this now costs 300€).

A cheap NEW modern system will be about 700€ in the EU without a graphics card. So if you must buy today because of the new monitor then just get the graphic card now and buy the system in 1-2 years when the AI craze cools off and we get affordable prices again.

For the graphic card I would lean to a AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT. For Linux it is the best. Low Mid Range Class. The downside is that it is a gaming card 1st and is expensive 350€. And this things are big. They occupy Dual-Slots and need extra external PCI-E Power connectors from the PSU. I realize this might be overkill for you.
Intel Arc A310 is a good future cheap choice. It should support 4k 120Hz HDR content. This one is for those high expensive resolution displays that you might one day buy. But the card itself is relatively cheap.
The key here is that is has modern DisplayPort 2.0 and HDMI 2.1 video outputs.


For anyone that is interested I like to push for miniPCs for the low-end spender. They are small and cheap. Consume 25-65W Power only. They have less parts that can be upgraded but I myself am in a situation where I don't do much upgrades anymore. I just buy a new PC after 7-10 years.

GMKtec NucBox M8 - AMD Ryzen™ 5 PRO 6650H - 16GB RAM +512GB SSD - 360€
GMKtec NucBox K8 Plus - AMD Ryzen™ 7 8845HS - 32GB RAM +1TB SSD - 680€

Thank you for your reply.

I can tell you that when I bought my graphics card, I chose the fanless ‘silent’ model because I prefer my equipment to be as quiet as possible. I guess the model you’re suggesting (quite expensive) will require additional power cables and will be quite large. To me, even the Radeon rx4. or rx5 cards seem rather bulky. One thing I do like about AMD graphics cards is that their drivers are built into the kernel and are usually detected straight away; with Nvidia drivers, it tends to take a bit more effort.

I hadn't looked at the mini PCs you mentioned; if you say you use one, you'll know how well it performs. I've just had a quick look at some reviews and they say they're very noisy and tend to crash when three or four applications are running. For now, I’m thinking more about changing the graphics card (or sticking with X11) and the monitor; I’ll see how things go in due course.

[Hendrixx]

Hmmm, a lot to think about. I have a further question. I have a laptop with AND processor and graphics card (7000) and have been running 25.10 without problems (haven't upgraded yet). But my desktop computer uses this CPU: 12 X Intel Core i5-10400 2.90 GHz, and I also have 16 Gb memory (no SSDs on this system). Would an AND graphics card be compatible with this setup? I live in Peru, so it may not be so easy to get one of these. Thanks again for all the help.

You should consider switching to an SSD disk. When I swapped my old HDD for an SSD, the desktop seemed to fly. It’s well worth it.

[INVICTRA]

Hmmm, a lot to think about. I have a further question. I have a laptop with AND processor and graphics card (7000) and have been running 25.10 without problems (haven't upgraded yet). But my desktop computer uses this CPU: 12 X Intel Core i5-10400 2.90 GHz, and I also have 16 Gb memory (no SSDs on this system). Would an AND graphics card be compatible with this setup? I live in Peru, so it may not be so easy to get one of these. Thanks again for all the help.

Yes all AMD graphic cards will work with your system.

Examples:

Year	GPU	Display Output Version	Power Draw
2017	AMD Radeon RX 550	HDMI 2.0b / DP 1.4	~50W
2017	AMD Radeon RX 560	HDMI 2.0b / DP 1.4	~75W
2022	AMD Radeon RX 6400	HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4a	~53W
2022	AMD Radeon RX 6500	HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4a	~107W
2021	AMD Radeon RX 6600	HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4a	~132W
2023	AMD Radeon RX 7600	HDMI 2.1 / DP 2.1	~165W

.
All low power variants are OK (up to 75W). Just plug them in.
The gaming variants do sometimes need more power (100W+).


You should check if you can power it. If it has one of these POWER connectors on the side then you might need to upgrade your Power supply.
They come in 6pin or 8pin. Some have dual 8pin connectors.

[vanadiumboy]

I was curious about Wayland and nVidia so I installed it on a nVidia 980 Ti (I think 6 GB VRAM)
The graphics looks fine. The System Monitor renders fine with the nVidia driver (With the Nouveau driver, in the past, it would crash the system when I opened System Monitor. Also, some closed source technologies are not present in the Nouveau driver, such as S3TC texture compression).
Also, the performance in games wasn't great with the Nouveau driver.

I didn't do any gaming or much of else on the Kubuntu 26.04. Some apps like Onboard, Virtual keyboard, Flameshot, Ksnip don't work with Wayland so i am sticking to Kubuntu 24.04.

[oldgeek]

Thanks for all the information. I think I have enough information now to make a correct decision.