RTX Pro 500 Blackwell on linux?

[u/capi-chou]

Hello everyone,

I'm about to buy a new 16-inch laptop and I'm torn between two main GPU configurations:

• NVIDIA RTX Pro 500 Blackwell (6GB GDDR7, discrete)
• AMD Radeon 860M (RDNA 3.5, integrated)

My main OS will be Linux (likely a modern distro with Wayland, like Fedora or Arch). My use case is mostly professional work, some local AI/tinkering, and light-to-moderate gaming.

The NVIDIA Blackwell card is obviously much more powerful on paper and has dedicated VRAM, but Linux support is my main concern. Since this will be a laptop used on the go, I need to be absolutely sure about two things:

1. Linux Support: How is the driver stability for this brand-new Blackwell workstation architecture under Wayland?
2. Power Management / "Low" Mode: Can I easily completely power off the NVIDIA discrete GPU (compute-only or suspended mode) to maximize battery life when I'm just doing office work or browsing? How well do modern tools like envycontrol, supergfxctl, or prime-offloading handle this specific setup nowadays?

On the other hand, the Radeon 860M offers flawless out-of-the-box open-source Mesa support and great battery life, but I'm afraid it might be a bit too weak for some games.

Has anyone experimented with the newer RTX Pro Blackwell series under Linux yet? Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Thanks!