The Fastest NVIDIA GPUs For Open-Source Nouveau With Steam Linux Gaming

Having the open-source Radeon results immediately put the Nouveau performance into perspective... Even with the GeForce GTX TITAN being partially re-clocked (0a performance level), the super high-end GTX TITAN GK110 GPU was running at the same speed as a Radeon HD 6770 on the open-source R600 Gallium3D driver (not even Catalyst). The fastest GPUs of the handicapped NVIDIA graphics cards for Counter-Strike: Source at 1080p were the GTX TITAN, GTX 770, GTX 760, and GTX 680.

With the poor re-clocking of NVIDIA hardware using the reverse-engineered Nouveau driver, even the GTX 780 Ti couldn't outperform a Radeon HD 6770! The GTX 680 also ended up being faster than the GTX 780 Ti due to the clocking troubles. The Radeon R9 290 on the open-source driver ended up being almost 70% faster than the GeForce GTX TITAN at 2560 x 1600.