Try the tty (ctrl+alt+f1) and see how quickly your inputs respond, its amazing how X11 and wayland (especially) add so much latency
I recently switched from whatever Ubuntu 17.10 is using (Gnome on Wayland?) to i3 on X.org, and there was no real performance increase that I could see.
Do you have any suggestions on how I can get a tty level experience (with the occasional ability to use a web browser), but with low latency? I obviously can't use tty when the screen is native resolution (and the text is miniscule in size).
Add "vga=normal nomodeset" to your kernel parameters, and revel in the speed (and blockiness of the font). :)
Just now I checked the input response in tty and terminator, and I just don't feel any difference at all.