Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite reviews are in, but these second-gen Windows-on-Arm chips still aren't grabbing me as a PC gamer

There’s been a decent level of buzz around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite chip for a while now. That’s for good reason. It popped up on Geekbench last month, beating its x86 laptop competition by over 30% in single-core performance, and early tests beat out AMD, Intel, and Apple in power. Now we’ve finally seen it tested by someone other than Qualcomm, and the results are positive, though largely just with similar showings to what Intel and AMD are offering.

Our friends over at Tom’s Hardware are among the most critical, though much of that critique lies at the feet of Asus for the build quality and software of the Zenbook A16. For gaming, they say the X2 Elite Extreme is impressive on paper, with 3DMark Steel Nomad scores higher than the M5 MacBook Air and Intel Core Ultra 7 355 Dell XPS 14, but less than the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H Acer Swift.

This is a common complaint. Not all PC games are supported on Arm (though it seems like Arm is finally getting in the arena to take on x86), with Engadget noting Arc Raiders also wouldn’t open. Engadget does, however, say that it got up to 80 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 on medium settings in 1080 with the help of FSR frame generation.

In their review, Hardware Canucks has put the chip through its paces in Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Rainbow Six Siege X and more. They get average FPS figures around 60 in Cyberpunk 2077, which is around 10 less than the Ultra X9 388H and X7 258H, but higher than Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Intel Ultra 9 288V. In Baldur’s Gate 3, it about matches the Panther Lake chips, blowing past Lunar Lake and AMD’s chips (though the M5 MacBook Air beats everyone here).

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Snapdragon X2E Review - It CRUSHES Everything, but... - YouTube

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Hardware Canucks says: “When everything from software to game optimisation aligns just right, the X2 Elite series hits frame rates that place them somewhere between the 288V, HX370, and Ultra X7 Series.”

Yet, they note the X2 Elite performs significantly worse in the likes of Dota 2, with “a huge variation between averages and 1% lows, which leads to very, very inconsistent on-screen motion.”

Hardware Canucks finishes off its analysis of gaming on X2 Elite, saying, “in many ways, it just feels like the best is yet to come for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series and gaming.”

Reviewers seem split on whether the 10-12 hours of battery life is good enough, with Tech Spurt calling it fantastic and Stuff noting it as better than the M5 MacBook Air, whilst Tom’s Hardware says, in its testing, the Snapdragon X2 Elite doesn’t quite match its competition.

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One thing is certainly clear from reviews: Its CPU is a beast. PC Mag registers a standout score in Cinebench (only being beaten by the Ryzen AI Max + Pro 395) and placing at the top of the pile in Geekbench Pro 6. Hardware Canucks testing put it well above Panther Lake, Lunar Lake, and the M5 MacBook Air in Cinebench multithread testing and second place behind the M5 MacBook Air in single-thread testing.

All things considered, the Snapdragon X2 Elite has had a strong first outing, with great performance, though Arm still doesn’t seem ready to replace my gaming rig. That being said, I don’t know if we’re that far off from that either. These next few years will be really important for Arm with the Steam Frame helping bring SteamOS to Arm and a certain green team all set to release a consumer-facing mobile Arm chip.