OneXPlayer 3 Shows Impressive Gaming Performance Against the Steam Machine in New Tests
The OneXPlayer 3 may be a portable gaming handheld, but recent testing shows it can stand surprisingly close to a much larger home gaming system. In a new comparison from ETA Prime, the handheld was tested against the Steam Machine across several demanding PC games, and the results were more competitive than many players might expect.
On paper, the Steam Machine should have a clear advantage. It has more room for cooling, a higher power budget, and the kind of hardware setup expected from a living-room gaming device. The OneXPlayer 3, meanwhile, is designed for portability. Even so, the handheld delivered strong frame rates and, in some cases, even pulled ahead.
In Cyberpunk 2077, both systems were tested at 1080p using high settings with Quality image upscaling. The Steam Machine averaged 109 FPS, while the OneXPlayer 3 reached 79 FPS. That makes the handheld around 25% slower, but considering the difference in size, power draw, and thermal headroom, the result is still impressive.
The real surprise came in Forza Horizon 6. At 1080p with high settings and XeSS set to Quality, the OneXPlayer 3 averaged 68 FPS, narrowly beating the Steam Machine’s 67 FPS result. The gap may be small, but it is notable because the handheld managed to edge out the larger system under the same settings.
The difference became even more interesting at 1440p. Without image upscaling, the OneXPlayer 3 delivered 51 FPS, while the Steam Machine managed 41 FPS. That is a clear win for the handheld and suggests that software optimization may be playing a major role in this particular game.
The contrast between Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon 6 points to an important detail: operating system performance can matter just as much as raw hardware power. Forza Horizon 6 appears to run better on Windows than on SteamOS, which may explain why the OneXPlayer 3 performed so well in that test.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider also showed that the OneXPlayer 3 can keep pace better than expected. With high settings and no image upscaling, the handheld was only 18% slower than the Steam Machine at 1080p. At 1440p, that gap shrank to just 7%, making the performance difference much less dramatic than the hardware comparison might suggest.
ETA Prime also demonstrated the potential of Multi-Frame Generation on the Intel Arc G3 Extreme GPU inside the OneXPlayer 3. In Crimson Desert, enabling Multi-Frame Generation helped the portable console push performance close to the Steam Machine, which was also using the same frame generation feature.
Overall, the OneXPlayer 3 proves that modern gaming handhelds are becoming far more capable than their compact size suggests. While the Steam Machine still has the advantage in certain demanding titles, the OneXPlayer 3 holds its own remarkably well and even wins in specific scenarios.
For gamers interested in handheld PC gaming, these results are encouraging. The OneXPlayer 3 may not replace a full home gaming setup for everyone, but it shows that portable Windows gaming devices are no longer limited to low settings or modest frame rates. With strong performance in Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 6, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Crimson Desert, the OneXPlayer 3 stands out as a powerful handheld gaming console that can compete far above its weight class.
