Steam Machine Windows 11 vs. SteamOS: Benchmarks Show Just a 1% Gap

Valve's Steam Machine has been a topic of discussion since launch, with pricing and performance both drawing attention from the community. A new comparison between SteamOS and Windows 11 on the same hardware has added another angle to that conversation, and the results run counter to what most people expected from a Linux-based gaming platform going up against Windows.

Valve recently released Windows drivers for the Steam Machine, which made this comparison possible. Reviewer ETA Prime installed Windows 11 on a Steam Machine using these drivers and found the process straightforward, with all hardware functioning as expected.

Why the Comparison Matters

The GPU identifies itself as an AMD Radeon RX 7600 in both Windows Task Manager and AMD's Adrenaline driver, and the unit used for testing had been upgraded from its stock configuration to 64GB of memory. Because of that memory upgrade, results on other configurations could vary somewhat, especially as a Windows installation accumulates more background processes over time.

With handhelds like the Steam Deck, we generally see SteamOS pull ahead of Windows by a wide margin, since Windows runs background processes and uses more resources than a lighter Linux-based system. That pattern is part of why SteamOS has built a reputation as the preferred choice for gaming on Valve hardware.

Based on the new testing, though, that gap has narrowed considerably on the Steam Machine, raising a question worth asking: Does the performance advantage of SteamOS shrink as the underlying hardware gets more powerful, and does that trend continue as hardware keeps improving?

Benchmark Results Between SteamOS and Windows

Across the games tested, SteamOS averaged around 1% faster than Windows 11, though results varied by title. Cyberpunk 2077 stood out as one of the few games in which SteamOS held a more noticeable lead, aligning with CD Projekt Red's history of releasing optimization profiles for Valve's hardware, including the Steam Deck. Outside of that title, most games landed close together regardless of which operating system was running them.

The gap widened in synthetic testing rather than gaming. In Geekbench 6, Windows 11 recorded a single-core score of 2503 against 2424 for SteamOS, which is a difference of around 3.3% and not a large gap in practice. The multi-core results told a different story, with Windows 11 scoring 9700 compared to 7900 on SteamOS, a 22% lead that did not carry over into gaming frame rates despite the size of the gap.

Since games have not been written or optimized with the Steam Machine specifically in mind, reaching near parity between SteamOS and Windows 11 says more about how far SteamOS has come than about its performance. As developers start building and testing profiles around the Steam Machine as reference hardware, we would expect that gap to widen in SteamOS' favor again, similar to what happened with Steam Deck optimization over time.

SteamOS offers advantages beyond raw frame rates, including no cost to use.

It gives a console-like experience without the background processes that come with Windows, and full portability of a game library between Steam Deck and Steam Machine. For most owners, the reasoning behind choosing a Steam Machine in the first place still points toward SteamOS by default.

Windows remains relevant mainly for multiplayer titles that rely on anti-cheat systems that SteamOS and the Proton compatibility layer do not fully support, which is part of why devices like the ROG Ally have found an audience running Windows instead of Linux.

At this stage, Valve has not added official dual-boot support for the Steam Machine, so running Windows currently means replacing SteamOS rather than switching between the two, and Valve does not provide official support for Windows installations on this hardware.