YouTuber ETA Prime compared gaming performance on an all-AMD PC running SteamOS and Windows 11 Pro, testing popular titles at 4K resolution. The benchmarks reveal that neither operating system consistently outperforms the other across games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. This highlights the growing viability of Linux-based platforms for gamers.
Linux gaming has seen notable growth, with distributions like SteamOS gaining traction as alternatives to Windows. Last year, Linux captured a 5% share of the US desktop market, driven partly by improvements in gaming compatibility. To assess this progress, YouTuber ETA Prime assembled an all-AMD desktop and dual-booted it with Windows 11 Pro and SteamOS version 3.7.17 on the stable channel.
The setup features an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor with eight cores and 16 threads, priced at $469, alongside 32 GB of DDR5 memory at up to 7,000 MT/s. It includes an ASRock B850 Challenger motherboard, an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card with 24 GB of VRAM for around $889, two 1 TB NVMe SSDs for each OS, and an 850 W Gold-rated power supply. All components were selected for out-of-the-box compatibility with SteamOS, with features like variable refresh rate and BIOS-level tuning enabled.
In benchmarks at 4K resolution, Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra settings without FSR averaged 84 frames per second on Windows 11 and 85 FPS on SteamOS, showing near parity. Borderlands 4 at Ultra with FSR Quality reached 74 FPS on Windows versus 69 FPS on SteamOS. Forza Horizon 5 at Extreme without FSR performed better on Windows at 191 FPS compared to 157 FPS on SteamOS, possibly due to the game's Microsoft ties.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 at Very High with FSR Quality favored SteamOS with 111 FPS against 103 FPS on Windows. Red Dead Redemption 2 at Ultra without FSR averaged 88 FPS on SteamOS and 96 FPS on Windows. Additional tests covered Left 4 Dead 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Doom: The Dark Ages.
ETA Prime concludes that performance differences vary by title, with no clear winner. A dual-boot setup provides flexibility, letting users switch OSes for optimal play while accessing Windows features when required.
