- TechSpot retested Windows 11 to determine gaming performance compared to Windows 10
- Windows 11 emerged victorious and was noticeably faster in some games
- The previous test showed that Windows 10 was faster, but 24H2 improved Windows 11 considerably on the gaming front, but there are other issues to consider here.
Which is better for gaming: Windows 11 or Windows 10? If you thought, like many people, that Windows 10 is faster in terms of performance with PC games (despite being the oldest operating system), well, not according to a new comparison, although it is true that there are a lot of nuances here.
Still, the main news is that in a TechSpot test that compared gaming performance across various benchmarks, the latest version of Windows 11 (25H2) came out ahead of Windows 10 (22H2, the final incarnation), although there wasn’t a huge difference.
As TechSpot concluded: “The verdict? Windows 11 25H2 beats Windows 10 in gaming performance, although your mileage will vary depending on hardware configuration, and we obviously can’t compare every configuration imaginable.”
This was based on a benchmark with 14 different games and an average of those results across three resolutions. At 1080p, Windows 11 was 4% faster than Windows 10 and 5% faster at both 1440p and 4K.
Notably, this reversed the result of a previous test that showed Windows 10 (22H2) to be faster than Windows 11 23H2, when the latter was the latest version. TechSpot notes that the 24H2 update actually fixed a number of bottlenecks in gaming performance.
Here come the pitfalls, then. Obviously, this result is based on a hardware configuration and, as TechSpot admits, it is a high-end configuration: AMD’s Ryzen 9800X3D processor and Nvidia’s RTX 5090 GPU. A lower-end gaming platform could well show a slightly different perspective, and changing the game selection could obviously skew the results in another way as well.
Using an AMD GPU could do the same, although the test also ran a couple of additional benchmarks (to clarify some issues with particular games) that used an AMD RX 9070 XT and Ryzen 9700X. That’s also a more realistic typical gaming setup (though still high-end), and Windows 11 was still faster in one test (by 2% to 3%), though it was a tie in the other. Again, it was a slight nod in favor of the new operating system.
Beyond the averages, there were some eye-opening individual results here. Arch Raiders in particular stands out, as Windows 11 proved to be a whopping 11% faster at 1080p, and somehow 14% and 15% faster at 1440p and 4K respectively. Borderlands 4 was also 9% to 13% faster on Windows 11.
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This is an intriguing battery of tests and certainly shows that Windows 11 is not slower than Windows 10, which is a much-cited anecdotal claim on social media. Although that idea has its roots in the past, where Windows 11 was (slightly) slower, according to previous tests from TechSpot.
So this is good news for Windows 11 gamers, but we must firmly keep in mind the caveats mentioned and that overall there is not a huge difference in gaming performance (except for the outliers noted).
We should also remember that TechSpot notes that it “removed both operating systems to minimize interference,” which means disabling VBS, memory integrity and kernel isolation (security features), as well as antivirus and the like, which seems like a sensible precaution (but not everyone does it).
Caveats aside, however, my problem, and I suspect the problem for many PC gamers, is not the performance levels that turned out well for Windows 11 here. It’s those bugs.
If you’re running Windows 11, you’re more likely to be frustrated with glitches, and while 24H2 may have nicely improved gaming performance, as TechSpot explains, it was also plagued by gremlins. It was the start of a bad run of bugs for Microsoft, and we’re still seeing Windows 11 hit by these annoyances in the first patch of 2026, which has led to some really nasty issues, including boot failures and also messing up sleep mode for some older PCs. There have also been quite a few crashes related to gaming with Windows 11.
Granted, not everyone is experiencing errors with Windows 11 and of course it depends on the PC configuration, installed apps and for gamers, the specific GPU they have and the games they play frequently, how often they update their drivers etc. There are a lot of moving parts, and that includes Microsoft’s monthly updates for Windows 11, which can introduce gaming (or other) bugs out of nowhere.
Windows 10, on the other hand, is a much more stationary beast. You only receive monthly security updates, with no new features and minimal manipulation of the underlying code base. In short, it’s more stable and reliable, and gamers using Windows 10 must surely look at the bug reports and frustrations of Windows 11 and think, “Well, then I won’t bother upgrading.” And can you blame them? Even if Windows 11 is now faster than Windows 10 in every way (which it should have been anyway in the first place).
Of course, the situation will change when Windows 10 runs out of extended support in October 2026, because at that point, upgrade decisions (or new PC purchases) will be forced. But in the meantime, I think Microsoft’s frustration over the lack of migration to Windows 11 from its previous operating system (with gamers and, indeed, everyday users) will continue.
That said, something is apparently being worked on to fix the innards of Windows 11 in terms of bug prevalence and, as I mentioned elsewhere this morning, I really hope this happens, but I have no real conviction that it will. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that I’m wrong.
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