After buying 4K monitor and NVIDIA graphics card, experience is not as smooth as I expected

Hi!

After buying 4K monitor I also have got NVIDIA GT 1030 to get 4K support (Manjaro system is running under Ryzen 7 5800x). After hardware installing I was very surprised KDE plasma is not smooth as I have expected.

Ok, I see, mining and ko resulted in very inappropriate videocards market.

So which compromise decision can be done? If I understand correctly, AMD cards have got very good Linux support. Among them say HP Radeon Pro WX 3100 is accessible for me. Will it resolve all performance issues (plasma effects and such) for not-gaming using?

Or - anything else I must to look for (preferably below $400)?

Sadly no. Despite of many NVIDIA rants on Linux, NVIDIA discrete graphics cards have better support on Linux (better performance) than AMD.

I’m very skeptical on NVIDIA GT 1030 for 4K; the resolution is too high for NVIDIA GT 1030 to handle with a great result.

Also, you need to consider additional factors:

  • The GPU driver you use, you must use proprietary driver for the best result. Check your installed graphics driver by mhwd -li. Install proprietary driver by sudo mhwd -a pci nonfree 0300.
  • The refresh rate of your 4K monitor. Check from KDE system settings, somewhere in the display setting.

Even for my Lenovo Legion 7 laptop with Manjaro KDE, I need to configure the display to 165 Hz instead of 60 Hz to enable smooth scrolling, maximize minimize window, etc.

What I can say is that I’m very skeptical with NVIDIA GT 1030 for 4K resolution and your 4K display refresh rate needs to be more than 60 Hz.

That’s completely false. AMD drivers are open source and they regularly contribute to the Linux kernel. Most people have no issues at all with AMD graphics.

NVIDIA drivers are proprietary and there are usually long outstanding bugs that NVIDIA does not seem to prioritize. You will see that most graphics issues people have here are with NVIDIA.

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He is not gaming user, then the display refresh rate 60 Hz is fine.

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Have replaced with HP Radeon Pro WX 3100 4GB. All Plasma effects are smooth now. At last!