I switched from my AMD RX6750 to a RTX3070 Ti this year(since i got the Nvidia nearly for free). There are still issues with Nvidia(for example in Game Mode, HDR etc.) but its really usable. AMD on the other Hand is Plug and Play without thinkering in my experience

Manjaro wouldnt be my pick for new users, i would pick something stable like Fedora or even Fedora Silverblue(if you choose Silverblue you can change DE by rebasing)

If it is for Media Files only UPnP could be an alternative to smb.

openSUSE

So… Orgies for privacy? :D