New benchmarks reveal SteamOS beats Windows on handheld gaming performance — here’s the results

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We now have more proof that SteamOS is better than Windows 11 for gaming handheld performance.

Ars Technica (via TechSpot) recently tested five PC games on the Lenovo Legion Go S running on SteamOS and Windows 11. With one exception, games run at higher frame rates on Valve’s operating system than on Microsoft’s. As someone who has tested the best handheld gaming consoles for years, I’m not surprised by the results.

For testing, Ars Technica started with the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S and tested five “high-end” 3D games using the games’ respective built-in benchmarking tools at two different graphics and resolution settings.

The site then installed Windows 11 on the handheld and downloaded updated drivers from Lenovo’s support site, and ran those same benchmarks again. For good measure, Ars Technica also installed AMD-compatible drivers from Asus, since those drivers are closer to the drivers included with SteamOS.

Per Ars Technica’s numbers, we can see that SteamOS delivers improved performance in four of the five games the site tested. Borderlands 3’s performance remained roughly the same on both operating systems, though Windows with Asus’ drivers had a slight advantage.

For games like Returnal, SteamOS has an extreme advantage over Windows. Sideloading the Asus drivers showed an improvement in Windows performance, but SteamOS still generally has the advantage.

On average, we see a 23.9% boost in gaming performance across four of the tested games (I excluded Borderlands 3 since those numbers were similar). This aligns with the 25% boost we saw last year when we turned the Asus ROG Ally X into a Steam Deck when we swapped Windows 11 for SteamOS.

It’s no contest

I tested a handful of games on both the SteamOS and Windows 11 models of the Legion Go S, but the numbers I saw had a caveat since those machines have different components. Ars Technica tested games on the same machine, which provides a clearer picture of the performance differences.

I’m not at all surprised by these results, given how SteamOS is specifically designed to work with gaming handhelds. Valve’s operating system also doesn’t have the overhead of Windows. That said, Windows has greater game compatibility than SteamOS, so that operating system might be preferable for more enthusiast PC gamers.

If you’re a more general gamer, however, SteamOS has a cleaner, handheld-friendly interface in addition to offering generally better gaming performance for some titles.

More from Tom’s Guide

• The best Steam games in 2025
• Finally! Steam runs natively on Mac with Apple Silicon
• Battle of the gaming handhelds: Which system should you buy?

Tony is a computing writer at Tom’s Guide covering laptops, tablets, Windows, and iOS. During his off-hours, Tony enjoys reading comic books, playing video games, reading speculative fiction novels, and spending too much time on X/Twitter. His non-nerdy pursuits involve attending Hard Rock/Heavy Metal concerts and going to NYC bars with friends and colleagues. His work has appeared in publications such as Laptop Mag, PC Mag, and various independent gaming sites.