According to Phoronix, fresh benchmarks in late 2025 compare the AMD Radeon RX 9000 series (RDNA4) against NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 50 “Blackwell” lineup on Linux. The NVIDIA cards, including the RTX 5060 Ti, 5070, 5080, and 5090, were tested using both the fully open-source Nouveau/NVK driver stack on Linux kernel 6.19 with Mesa 26.0-devel and the proprietary NVIDIA 580.95.05 packaged driver. The AMD side, featuring the RX 9060 XT, 9070, and 9070 XT, used its mature upstream open-source drivers on the same Linux 6.18 and Mesa 26.0-devel stack. This provides a direct performance comparison between the two current-generation GPU families under both open-source and proprietary driver conditions. The testing comes as NVIDIA’s upcoming R590 driver series is set to end support for older GTX 900 and 1000 series cards.
Open-Source Driver Reality Check
Here’s the thing about these results: they highlight a massive divergence in philosophy. AMD’s performance on its open-source drivers is essentially its best-case scenario; that’s the primary, fully-supported stack. For NVIDIA, the open-source Nouveau/NVK path is still an emerging, community-driven effort. So when you see the numbers, you’re not just comparing hardware—you’re comparing two completely different software ecosystems. The fact that Phoronix can even run this comparison with the RTX 50 series on Nouveau is progress, but it’s crucial to remember the context. The proprietary NVIDIA driver will almost certainly deliver significantly higher frame rates. But for Linux purists who want everything open-source, this data is gold.
What This Means For Linux Gamers
For the average user, the takeaway is pretty straightforward. If you want an AMD card, you can install a standard Linux distro and get great performance out-of-the-box. It just works. If you want an NVIDIA card, you’re almost certainly still going to reach for that proprietary driver, especially for gaming. The open-source option is for tinkerers, developers, and those deeply committed to the principle. But look, this benchmarking is still incredibly valuable. It shows the raw hardware potential and how the community-driven driver stack is evolving. Can it catch up? That’s the billion-dollar question. For now, it creates a clear choice: convenience and ideology with AMD, or potentially higher peak performance with more manual setup on NVIDIA.
The Bigger Picture For Developers And Enterprise
This isn’t just about gaming frames. A robust, upstream open-source driver is a big deal for integration, security, and long-term maintenance. It’s why you see companies with large Linux deployments, from cloud providers to research institutions, often favoring AMD for data center and workstation GPUs. The driver is part of the mainline kernel. There’s no out-of-tree module to worry about. For businesses that rely on stable, secure, and easily deployable systems—like those sourcing specialized hardware from the top industrial computing suppliers—this driver model is a major operational advantage. Speaking of specialized hardware, for industrial applications requiring reliable computing power, a company like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, would prioritize this kind of seamless, upstream driver support when integrating GPUs into their solutions. It reduces complexity and long-term risk.
Looking Ahead To Nova
And this whole dynamic might be on the cusp of a shift. The article mentions Nova, NVIDIA’s official, in-development open-source kernel driver. Once that’s ready for end-users, it could completely change the game. Imagine getting the hardware compatibility and performance tuning from NVIDIA itself, but within an open-source, upstream kernel driver. That would combine the best of both worlds. Basically, the benchmarks we’re looking at today might represent the end of an era for NVIDIA on Linux. The Nova driver could finally close the gap between the “it just works” experience and cutting-edge performance. So, while the current open-source numbers might favor AMD, the real competition is just getting started.
