Gnome is very much using the GPU for rendering its GUI. They chose a tradeoff to work well on new systems. But using something like Windowmaker, Icewm, Blackbo

Gnome is very much using the GPU for rendering its GUI. They chose a tradeoff to work well on new systems. But using something like Windowmaker, Icewm, Blackbox, Openbox should be fine. Xfce, Lxde and other lighter desktops might work too. Also, there is still Enlightenment 16 and also e17.