I have a PC that I got from someone else who built their PC and it is finally starting to show its age. Sometimes when I open applications, the frame rate drops.
I think it is using one of these currently, from 2014. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/900-series/
I know that gfx cards have to be compatible with your Power Supply, and your PCI-E slot, but not sure what else I should know??
I would like to get something very compatible with Linux, Firefox, and Wayland, with lots of hardware codecs. Intel ARC?
How do you learn all this stuff?


It doesn’t struggle with web browsing per se., just with opening and closing windows mostly. I just experienced it – I open the file browser, the system hangs for a moment or two where I can’t move the mouse. Then the mouse jerks around for a bit. Then the system is smooth again. I looked in System Monitor right after this happened and didn’t see any big spikes in storage, CPU, or memory, so I am assuming GPU.
It is probably not physically clean. I should address that first.
It is running on a Samsung SSD 830 series. I tried enabling write cache. I ran into the system stuttering problem (described above) clicking ‘cancel’ on a random dialog.
I have had a lot of problems with codecs, and video playback being choppy everywhere, which is why I am focused on getting good hardware codecs that are supported under linux.
The CPU/motherboard definitely does have a built-in iGPU. I think I could try it out with
prime-select. Maybe that is worth experimenting.