The problem is really down to finding places where you can actually build something like a hydroelectric power plant.

You need a large area you can safely flood. (No villages in the area or only villages you can buy out the owners of) or a high up lake.

The area to flood needs to have the geology required to construct a dam safely.

And finally, the area needs to be pretty high up and have an area below you can direct the outgoing water to.

Up until recently I was using a gtx 1060 just fine. Not sure about the high end ray tracing stuff though.

I’d say give it a try, I had a great experience. Never had any proton issues with an nvidia card my self. Just keep in mind nvidia drivers on Linux are notorious for being bad. If you choose an LTS distro or one that packages the drivers you’ll be fine though. Pop!_OS LTS with the nvidia drivers is what I ran.