SteamOS vs Windows 11 for PC Gaming

Prompt

As of right now (July 2026), how much of a performance gain does SteamOS provide over Windows 11 for PC gaming? Assume two identical machines, brand-new out of the box, or custom-built from scratch. Say a power user were to start with a “bare metal” 1TB SSD, mid-range Intel CPU and mid-range NVIDIA GPU with 32GB of RAM… Identical specs… then the power user installs SteamOS on the first PC and Windows on the second, next they install several graphically demanding AAA game titles on each; e.g. Returnal, Control Resonant, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Resident Evil Requiem, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth Wukong, Spider-Man 2, etc… Will there be any obvious, measurable difference in frame rates, loading times, thermals, power draw, battery life, etc? How much faster/leaner is SteamOS compared to Windows 11? Now compare the two operating systems on an AMD laptop with a unified APU, specifically the “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max+ 395 platform (128GB total RAM). Have there been any real-world gaming reviews and/or benchmarks for SteamOS running on this machine in particular? If you can’t find verified use cases online, estimate the performance gains based upon other AMD APUs running SteamOS. Thanks.