Where did you get benchmarks for Hollow Knight?

The intent of the Steam Frame was never to compete with a PCVR rig in standalone mode and don't recall anybody ever saying it was. Valve explicitly stated that it was to be a "streaming first headset."

The Frame technically has a slightly more powerful chip in it than the Quest 3 so should outperform the latter by a small margin in theory. The Frame also has eye tracking whereas the Quests do not (except the Quest Pro, which is NLA and was ~$1,500 even when it was) so the potential is there for foveated rendering to enhance framerates if developers actually bother to support it in the future. For pure standalone VR performance with native games, the Frame should outperform the Quest 3. PC games run on the headset in standalone mode will have to be done through a compatibility layer, which is probably not 100% optimal for performance. But for what it's worth, the various Quests can't play PC content at all so I'm not sure what the complaint is there.

hold on you can't say that and not link to where you got silk song performance stats. I haven't seen anything about anyone having access to do proper benchmarks

I mean, I'm not sure why your expectations were so high. Valve is a buisness, not a wizards' order. Short of effectively strapping a desktop PC to your back, theres a strict limit in how powerful a computer you can make wearable.

Also, notably, the Index Headset alone was $500, but for the full index system its meant to replace it's more like $1000. When they said "less than the Index" this is likely what they're refering to since the headset is pretty useless without tracking and controllers. Even with heavy subsidization from data collection and attempts at monopolizing the market, Facebook still only managed to get the price down to $500 on the Quest 3, so its be ridiculous to expect a lower price from a headset that does neither and has better hardware.

I would guess once the Hollow Night devs release a version that isn't slowed down by two compatibility layers (Proton and FEX) it should work quite well on the Steam Frame hardware.

But yeah, it's not going to be 500, but I think it is worth the extra cost over the Quest3.

I don't know how you're using/planning to use your headset, but I don't care much that it's able to play embedded Silksong (if that struggle is even real).

Matters a lot more to me that I can get a few simple/optimized games for "mobile" VR like a couple rhythm games and cool VR toys and stuff. Everything else can be PC streaming, including bigger VR games.

I want color passthrough...

If you would like to skip the Meta shitshow, the Steam Frame is not a bad option. If cost is your biggest issue then The Quest 3 is going to be your best option. I like my Quest 3 and I use it only for PCVR using Virtual Desktop.