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The takeaway: As numerous controversies and Microsoft’s relentless push for generative AI damage Windows 11’s reputation, Linux continues to make strides in performance and compatibility. Handheld PCs have made Linux gaming more viable than ever, but the jury is still out on whether it’s time to switch from Windows on high-end desktops.

A recent benchmark from PC Games Hardware suggests that, at least for some games, Proton has nearly eliminated the performance cost of running Windows code on Linux. AMD Radeon RX 9000 GPU owners uninterested in online games should seriously consider switching to Linux.

The outlet tested 10 games on 10 graphics cards to compare Windows 11 performance with CachyOS, an Arch Linux distro that comes packaged with gaming-specific optimizations. Although Windows remains ahead in most titles, especially on Nvidia graphics cards due to the lack of proper Linux GeForce drivers, Linux achieves some notable victories.

For example, Anno 117: Pax Romana runs 1 to 5 percent faster on Linux with RX 9000 GPUs and the RX 7800 XT, while Nvidia graphics cards perform roughly 15 percent worse. The story is similar in A Plague Tale: Requiem, and The Outer Worlds 2 heavily favors Linux and AMD. Driver issues prevent Obsidian Entertainment’s latest RPG from booting in Linux on RTX 50-series GPUs, but Team Red’s cards see a roughly 5 percent performance uplift.

Meanwhile, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is an unusual case in which the RTX 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 run 1 to 2 percent faster on Linux, while the RX 9000 series cards lag by roughly 7 percent. In Baldur’s Gate 3, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and other titles, Windows 11’s advantage on Radeon GPUs is usually less than 5 percent, but it can extend to 20 percent on GeForce, especially on the RTX 5090. Linux also continues to struggle with Cyberpunk 2077’s high-end ray tracing settings.

PC Games Hardware also noted that the average framerate numbers mask performance stability, which is better on AMD graphics cards on Linux. However, further testing is required to determine how Proton handles different CPU and memory configurations. Although an earlier benchmark indicated that SteamOS has not overcome Windows on dedicated GPUs, the situation may change after Valve launches the Steam Machine and begins optimizing its Linux distro for discrete graphics and split memory pools.

Following recent breakthroughs with Proton, 90 percent of Windows games can now boot on Linux. Furthermore, the recently released Wine version 11 boasts substantial performance improvements and may soon support Adobe Photoshop. Secure Boot and kernel-level anti-cheat remain the primary obstacles to running some of the most popular multiplayer PC games on gaming-optimized Linux distros, such as CachyOS and Bazzite.