AMD does have the best performance/price ratio, while Nvida is more about the newest technology and overal a better suited GPU. AMD never aimed to "beat" Nvidia GPU's. They just want to create GPU's with a better value > performance/price ratio.
It depends on so many factors which one will be better suited for you. I would say, if you only care about raw power with a good value, AMD is the brand. If you want to play with the newest technology, like ray tracing, path tracing and even rendering technique's like ReSTIR, Iray, Nvidia is the way to go.
About Linux what
@MimeRubberneck said, I don't have any experience with Linux but i've heard this multiple times that AMD is better suited for Linux.
Also if you want to work with AI like Stable Diffusion, Nvidia is also way to go.
You can't go wrong with both brands, but it just depends on so many factors, also the budget that you want to spend. Like
@SlimerJSpud said, if you also want to work with DAZ3D in the future, Nvidia is the way to go.
If I need to pick, I would go for Nvidia. I see a big future in the technology that Nvidia brings. DLSS performance better in my opinion as FSR, Nvidia is now heavily developing ReSTIR which renders way faster as Talbot. Iray in DAZ3D is very impressive and afcourse the whole lighting aspect like path tracing is just phenomenal.
I also spoken to a person who claimed that the company he worked for, only works with Nvidia due the Cuda Cores. But I don't have much expierence to go this deep.
If you don't care about all that, just go for a AMD.
If you want to have the top GPU's that you can buy right now, it looks like this.
(prices are based in my country)
1. Nvidia RTX 4090 (1800 euro's)
2. Nvidia RTX 4080 Super (1200 euro's)
3. Nvidia RTX 4080 (same price as the super version, being phased out)
4. AMD RX 7900 XTX (800 euro's)
5. Nvidia RTX 4070 Super (700 euro's)
Also keep in mind that VaM is very community driven software, which means that VaM is not very optimized. This is something I tell to everyone, don't expect massive increasement in FPS. If you use for example 6 light sources with 3 characters, it will be hard to get a stable FPS even with the top tier GPU's. Just a reminder, to avoid any disappointments. VaM is very hardware intensive software. Yes, you will notice difference, but don't expect to much from it.
As a example, this is a test scene i've made. By default, VaM only supports 6 light sources. I have it set to 11 light sources by overwriting the maximum default settings. And i'm using just 8 light sources in this scene, with realtime reflections + 1 character, and you can see already see that I barely keep 60 FPS in native 3860x2160. I'm using a I9 14900kf with a RTX 4080. So, performance wise also heavily depends on the scene's, just a friendly reminder. I just tell this to everyone who want's to buy a new GPU for VaM. I hate that people spend hunderds of dollars/euro's just to find out that they can't get the FPS they desired. But afcourse, you will feel the difference, that's for sure. But yet again, it heavily depends on the scene. Using +5 lights, using +3 characters (especially combined) will decrease the FPS significantly, even on top hardware, keep that in mind.
You can also check out this forum page.
@MacGruber made a Benchmark plugin. You can see how certain GPU's perform in VaM by using his benchmark plugin. He probably knows more about this subject. He is a king when it comes to graphical and GPU things. Just scroll inside this topic and see what benchmarks people posted.
This thread is intended to share and discuss result from the MacGruber Benchmark plugin. As a side project, I was looking at PC components for upgrading my old machine. That made me browse through various forum threads on the Hub discussing FPS in VaM. Everyone is posting random FPS values, but...
hub.virtamate.com