KDE/GNOME Wayland vs. X.Org Radeon Linux Gaming Performance

As we hit the end of 2021 for those wondering about the X.Org vs. (X)Wayland gaming performance difference for both GNOME Shell and KDE Plasma, here are some fresh benchmarks using the latest open-source Radeon graphics driver stack and desktops on Ubuntu 21.10.

This round of tests with an AMD Radeon RX 6800 was using the latest graphics driver stack in the form of Mesa 22.0-devel as of Christmas with Linux 5.16 Git. KDE Plasma 5.22.5 and GNOME Shell 40.5 as packaged on Ubuntu 21.10 were in use as the primary desktops tested both for their Wayland and X.Org sessions. As an additional perspective, Xfce 4.16 with its X.Org session was also included as part of this round of Linux gaming performance benchmarks.

This article is primarily to deliver some fresh performance numbers for how GNOME vs. KDE is looking when it comes to gaming performance and the X.Org vs. (X)Wayland impact. Similar tests on the NVIDIA side using their 495 driver series with GBM support is forthcoming as well on Phoronix. Several other year-end type Linux GPU driver/performance comparisons are also coming out over the days ahead.