No, you need to use at least one of them, otherwise the GPU itself will not work, right?

What i'm trying to say is that Proton itself doesn't work only on AMD, as NVIDIA can run Proton games very well too, and Intel can run it too.

In the end, only ACO needs an AMD GPU to run, but it doesn't a lot to do with Proton itself.

Nvidia still doesn't work with Wayland AFAIK, and Nouveau doesn't work for 900 series or later AFAIK.

I still recommend everyone who wants to run Linux to go for AMD graphics cards. Their FOSS drivers work well, and you can get good performance on 1080p and 1440p. More and more games work with Proton, and Lutris allows one to download profiles which are supposed to work.

CPU-wise, AMD gives the best bang for the buck since Ryzen 2. So that is a no-brainer.

In both decisions though, you support the viable underdog.

We're talking about Proton, not about wayland, tho.

And I also recommend AMD graphics cards, my RX 580 and my Ryzen 7 1700 works fine with Linux...so yeah.