SteamOS runs surprisingly well on AMD Strix Halo laptop in AAA gaming tests

[DragonSlayer101]

What just happened? With Valve continuing to ignore growing demand for a SteamOS-powered gaming PC, a YouTuber took matters into his own hands by installing SteamOS on an AMD Strix Halo-powered Windows 11 laptop. He also ran several real-world benchmarks that seem to suggest expanding SteamOS to third-party PCs was one of the best decisions Valve has made in recent years.

Popular YouTube channel ETA Prime installed SteamOS 3.9 on an Asus TUF Gaming A14 laptop using the official Steam Deck recovery image. The laptop is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392 APU with 12 Zen 5 cores and a Radeon 8060S iGPU. It also features 32GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory, a 14-inch 2,560 × 1,600 display with a 165Hz native refresh rate, and a 73Wh battery.

The experiment showed that the TUF Gaming A14 hardware can run SteamOS natively, offering both a gaming mode and a traditional desktop interface. The OS also provided compatibility with the laptop's hardware components, along with built-in support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB ports, and peripherals.

Once the OS was installed, the YouTuber turned his attention to gaming performance by running several AAA and indie titles on the device. He found that the laptop delivered a console-like experience in most games, including Halo: Campaign Evolved, Spider-Man 2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Crimson Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, and Hollow Knight: Silksong.

The first game tested was Halo: Campaign Evolved, which ran at a smooth 70 FPS at 1440p on High settings with FSR set to Medium. Crimson Desert also ran well at 1440p on High settings, while Spider-Man 2 averaged more than 80 FPS at 1440p on High settings with FSR disabled. Doom: The Dark Ages struggled on Ultra settings and even required FSR set to Balanced on High settings to exceed 60 FPS.

In Cyberpunk 2077, the laptop delivered a stable 60 FPS at 1440p using the High preset and FSR 2.1. The YouTuber disabled AI-based frame generation during the test to measure how many frames the system could render natively. During the battery life test, the laptop ran the game for around two hours and 25 minutes at 800p, but lasted only around one hour and 40 minutes at 1200p.

The indie Metroidvania title Hollow Knight: Silksong ran without any issues at 1200p, delivering a steady 60 FPS while power consumption remained below 16W at all times. Estimated battery life in Hollow Knight and other indie titles ranged between four and seven hours, depending on the settings and display resolution.

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SteamOS runs surprisingly well on AMD Strix Halo laptop in AAA gaming tests

 

[opckieran]

What a world we live in, where declaring a game's performance on a gaming laptop to be "console-like" is a compliment...

 

[Axiarus]

How is it surprising that a Linux distro runs games well?

 

[cfenton]

The problem with Strix Halo has never been the performance, it's always been the cost. When it came out you could get a laptop with a 5070 for less. It never made sense for gaming unless you absolutely needed something like the ROG Flow form factor.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Wow… it runs games almost as well as Windows… and hurray, by flipping to SteamOS instead, you can now run less games - and at slower speeds! A triumph!

 

[dangh]

The problem with Strix Halo has never been the performance, it's always been the cost. When it came out you could get a laptop with a 5070 for less. It never made sense for gaming unless you absolutely needed something like the ROG Flow form factor.

Laptop gaming had never made a sense but here we are...

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Laptop gaming had never made a sense but here we are...

There are plenty of people who need a somewhat portable machine, but still want to do some regular gaming. College students would be a major market - My wife works on a college campus, and says these days like half the male students* are carrying around gaming laptops from class to class. They just need enough battery life to last for a few lectures of note taking (which modern gaming laptops can do just fine), anywhere else they might be using the laptop, like their dorm, the student union, the library has plenty of wall sockets. And laptops are easier to fit into cramped dorms and haul with you on breaks than a gaming desktop would be.

*She has noticed an interesting sex divide here; while gaming laptops are common among male students, they rare among female ones. Meanwhile lots of female students carry around Apple laptops, but she almost never sees a male student with one.

 

[HAZERD2]

Wow… it runs games almost as well as Windows

And with less bloat!

But adding to your point, I don't understand any reason for this os other than if you have a rig that you only want to game on... Also, the laptop part doesn't really make sense for this operating system

 

[Squid Surprise]

And with less bloat!

But adding to your point, I don't understand any reason for this os other than if you have a rig that you only want to game on... Also, the laptop part doesn't really make sense for this operating system

Windows games better… unless you only want to play Steam games (and Windows still runs those better), it makes no sense…