AMD graphics drivers
Ranked 6 of 8 graphics drivers by recommenders
Praised for working open source Linux drivers that are the safer bet. Critics report buggy Windows drivers with crashes and timeouts.
Praised for working open source Linux drivers that are the safer bet. Critics report buggy Windows drivers with crashes and timeouts.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 47%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open source drivers, well maintained
“AMD on the other hand is amazingland and works perfectly, officially supported and maintained open source driver.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux” “You need to use the open source drivers. As far as I know these should be the default on all distros”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” “AMD is just the only one that has really good open source drivers which can benefit from it”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Linux 7.2 Released” - Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User”
- Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “The RCE that AMD wouldn't fix”
Built into distros, works out of box
“You need to use the open source drivers. As far as I know these should be the default on all distros”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” “use the builtin AMD drivers, you shouldn't have to touch those”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” Safer bet than Nvidia
“Of course AMD is still the safer bet”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” “AMD seems to do it the best”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “No Graphics API”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Buggy, crash-prone drivers
“AMD drivers were buggy, so even when their cards were more performant at the same price point, folks opted for NVIDIA for reliability.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Why isn't AMD's MI300X competitive?” “What I actually rage quit Windows over was AMD graphics drivers and a couple of my video games crashing.”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 users are tired of MS account requirements creeping into everything” “AMD drivers are beyond terrible and you'll experience frequent timeouts.”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung” - Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet”
- Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Nvidia's Risky Business”
Less reliable than Nvidia drivers
“AMD drivers were buggy, so even when their cards were more performant at the same price point, folks opted for NVIDIA for reliability.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Why isn't AMD's MI300X competitive?” “the AMD drivers cause far more trouble than the nVidia ones ever do”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “Nvidia RTX Spark” “AMD's drivers are noticeably more buggy.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet” Windows auto-updates and support issues
“only to get your support dropped after 2(two!) years of shoddy drivers is just unbearable”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver to Windows” “the Windows AMD drivers auto-updated and stopped working”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: Is it just me, or is software buggier across the board?”
Other graphics drivers people recommend
The four most recommended other graphics drivers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA proprietary Linux drivers | 40 | 49 | 45% | 10 | 20 yrs9 owners | — |
| Mesa | 30 | 9 | 77% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Nvidia drivers | 25 | 53 | 32% | 9 | 14 yrs4 owners | — |
| amdgpu driver | 15 | 11 | 58% | 6 | — | — |
| AMD graphics driversThis page | 9 | 10 | 47% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“AMD is just the only one that has really good open source drivers which can benefit from it”
“Drivers will always be half baked.”
“only to get your support dropped after 2(two!) years of shoddy drivers is just unbearable”
“the Windows AMD drivers auto-updated and stopped working”
“they were silently reducing quality to juice their benchmark numbers”
“What I actually rage quit Windows over was AMD graphics drivers and a couple of my video games crashing.”
“in Linux, the drivers are pretty great as far as I can tell”
“the AMD drivers cause far more trouble than the nVidia ones ever do”
“AMD drivers were buggy, so even when their cards were more performant at the same price point, folks opted for NVIDIA for reliability.”
“super basic HTTP redirect -> installer running on their machine attack”
“AMD made great effort to enable their cards fully under open source drivers”
“Of course AMD is still the safer bet”
“use the builtin AMD drivers, you shouldn't have to touch those”
“AMD's drivers are noticeably more buggy.”
“Yes they are less shit for most people.”
“You need to use the open source drivers. As far as I know these should be the default on all distros”
“AMD on the other hand is amazingland and works perfectly, officially supported and maintained open source driver.”
“AMD seems to do it the best”
“AMD drivers are beyond terrible and you'll experience frequent timeouts.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.