AMD, easily. Its literally plug and play. You can even pick some second hand options for cheap that are still solid for gaming such as the vega 56/64 and the RX 5700XT (which is I use). Intel isn't bad so long as you're not playing the newest stuff, my Arc a750 is solid in games like Fallout 4 and Elden Ring. Starfield is complete mess on it. Another thing with Intel is you'll need a distro with a 6+ kernel to get the most out of it.

If I were buying a card right now I'd get either the 6700XT or the 6800XT because they're both at crazy good value for the money right now, especially if you can get one used or refurbished from a reputable seller with a return policy.

AMD is generally better

AMD is better on Linux most of the time. Running a AMD card day one is not hassle free.

That being said if you pick a up to date distro all 7000 and 6000 series should work fine now. They are already in the kernel and mesa for a while. You may want to update you kernel and mesa sometimes to get better performance and stability.

But in my experience nvidia is fine on Linux. (I only used older cards gtx 970 and a rtx 2060) especially when you have just one monitor or all monitors on the same refresh rate. It's not on par with windows but will work with the Nvidia drivers.

So I would say if you a simple setup Nvidia is fine and AMD is better. It all depends on the best deal you can get. If ray tracing is not that important AMD is new the best value. If you more on a budget second AMD Rx 5700 XT are pretty cheap here and there are some good deals on Nvidia 30 series cards.

As far I have read intel cards can be a pain on Linux. So I would not recommend it for now.

This sums up my feelings on Nvidia.

Not Nvidia, they do not play well with Linux. I've had all sorts of weird problems that I've traced back to driver errors caused by Nvidia, both proprietary and open source.

I had a gtx1060 when I started using linux, then upgraded to 2060 then again to 2080, they all worked fine without any major problem (except that file system checking at boot sometimes and wayland). Last year I upgraded to RX6800 and man everything just works, no more filesystem checks at boot, Wayland is mu way to go now.

If I have a nvidia card now I would just use, but if I'm buying a new/used gpu it will definitely be AMD.

AMD. I’d get the rx 6800 xt

I just built my first every dedicated Linux machine. With gaming and 3d design for printing as focus. I chose RX 6700 XT and it's been plug and play. Of course I've only been playing Starfield so far on it. I did have a bug with Steam but got that sorted.

I just swapped from NVidia to AMD, since Proton was not working under NVidia for Starfield at launch (and I’ve generally been unhappy using NVidia for a while).

I can finally also use things like Wayland where NVidia just doesn’t support it well enough to be a good option (e.g., weird issues with full disk encryption unlock screen, no night light support)

I know CUDA and productivity apps might push you in the other direction, but if your main priority is gaming, I suspect AMD will be nicer. My first impressions is that it plays way better with Linux and reduces headaches that shouldn’t exist but you’ll deal with under Nvidia.

AMD is marginally easier but Nvidia is a lot better than people make out. The drivers install with one command in most distros.

I have an NVIDIA 1060 and it is such a pain in the ass to deal with. The number of random problems I've had with it has put me off from ever buying a computer with NVIDIA hardware ever again. Save yourself the constant walking on eggshells and get AMD.

Definitely AMD, they give people enough data to build open source drivers and you will simply have better support and integration with those. It's not like Nvidia drivers are awful or anything but they just cause annoyances and especially with new technologies like Wayland (Display server protocol that most of Linux is about to adopt) they can be a pain. AMD GPUs work great on Linux, have far better pricing rn and they have no issues with Windows ether, even if you used Windows more I would recommend AMD rn for the pricing alone!

I have a 2070 super that I use for gaming and tensor stuff. So far no problems with Arch, X11, and i3. I don't really have brand loyalty though, when I last bought a graphics card I just considered what was going to be best for my price point.

I’ll sometimee switch to Windows to play specific games as well.

That is probably the best answer. Linux is a serious POSIX compliant UNIX like operating system. Gaming on Linux is pretty much an afterthought, with game studios not producing native Linux ports. Last I saw was Starsiege Tribes II, which while they made a native port, they let it languish and die. Most of the games out there will require Proton (A version of Wine) or similar. While that trick can get many games to play on Linux, usually it is not supported by the game studio that made the game, which is less than fun when games games end up having issues. Worse, games running ainti-cheat can mistake that fake windows environment as a hacked system designed to try and cheat the game, which can get you irreversibly banned from such a game. Not worth the risk. Finally, when issues with this compatibility wedge come up, and they will sooner or later, often gamers, such as yourself, take to blaming Linux, instead of the gaming studios or the compatibility wedge, making Linux look bad to others and hinders Linux desktop adoption rates. Do everyone yourself and Linux a favor and just run the games where they were made to be played, Windows... unless it's a native Linux port or even better, was written for Linux from the start.