I want to start using Linux to learn more about how OS works and maybe move to Linux as a primary system. However I'd like to play some games such as CS:GO, Dota 2, HL2, L4D2, ARK, Hotline Miami and POSTAL 2. I've heard many things about AMD drivers working like crap and people avoiding AMD when using Linux. When I read about this whole thing I was literally hating myself for choosing R9 270X instead of 760. But I saw that AMD has been improving performance a lot recently and making new drivers called AMDGPU. Should I wait before they make these drivers to make my experience more enjoyable?
P.S. Want to go with Ubuntu Gnome 15.10. P.S.S. Specs: Intel Core i5 3450 GIGABYTE GA-Z77N-WIFI 8GB DDR3 MSI Radeon R9 270X GAMING 2G 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD P.S.S. Sorry for being total noob :/
I found performance was not on par with Windows, but this varies between models, driver type, kernel version and game. I think you'll be fine with that card and the games you want to play.
Phronix has ALLOT of benchmarks on just Linux. AMD is getting better. CSGO runs great on Mint and your system blows mine out of the water so you should be fine. A10-7850k barefoot and stock:)
No, AMD drivers work the best on linux, far, far better than NVIDIA's. The open source drivers for your card are in great shape, probably on par with the proprietary drivers for CS:GO if you use the newest kernel (and not the antiquated year old, four-releases-behind kernel and display stack that mint uses).
As for the proprietary drivers, then yes, AMD's drivers are worse than NVIDIA's. Things are changing for AMD though, and for the better, they are switching to an unified development model for the open source and the proprietary drivers, with most of the code being open source, which will translate into improved performance for both drivers.
In my opinion, AMD is the right choice when it comes to linux.
That really has not been my experience with what's been available to date. Whilst you can get things working and an amount of effort and luck seems to be involved. I've used an R7 260X, R9 280X, R9 290 on Linux (Ubuntu 14.04, 15.04 Sabayon 15.xx, Mint 17.2) and whilst they worked and gave acceptable performance none matched their Windows performance, the R9 290 being worst of all (proproetary or open source).
The GTX 770, 960, 970 and 980Ti that have passed through my systems have all worked great without exception with performance equal to Windows with the Nvidia blobs and installation was less hassle too.
Obviously swapping proprietary drivers for open source changes things somewhat and the OP's card is very well supported so he shouldn't worry.
With GCN 1.1 or lower cards the proprietary drivers are fine but still a bit behind nvidia with GCN 1.2 they are quite bad though AMD's open source drivers are much better than nvidia's
The "work best on linux part" was referring to the open source drivers. This might not be relevant right now for people who use the proprietary driver, but it will become very relevant once the proprietary driver uses the same kernel infrastructure as the open source driver and the proprietary becomes just another package that runs in user space.
And this will happen, this isn't just marketing speech, AMD has no other choice but to open source as much as it can to stay competitive, they cannot afford to lock down their hardware and software like NVIDIA does because they don't have their market share.
My experiences may be out of date, but I prefer LTS versions on AMD graphics systems when the age of the card permits it, this is based on my experiences when dist-upgrading 2 AMD graphics systems through standard Ubuntu releases (a A6-4455M laptop, and 6950 desktop).
I've given up on the proprietary drivers in Linux. They are both terrible, I've had numerous problems with both Nvidia and Radeon. Open source is where it's at going forward. Intel has the best open drivers, Radeon second and NV gives you the finger.