Phoronix published initial benchmarks today comparing NVIDIA Linux gaming performance on the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS against the current Ubuntu 25.10 release. The review focuses on out-of-the-box performance with the default desktop environment. The results indicate performance benefits for NVIDIA users on Ubuntu 26.04. This is attributed to GNOME 50, which will be the default desktop environment. Phoronix noted that Mutter 50, the window manager and compositor component of GNOME, incorporates "some NVIDIA optimizations," contributing to the improved performance for NVIDIA graphics hardware on the new long-term support release.