Qualcomm says 90% of games run on its new Snapdragon X2 Elite, and faster than Intel and AMD

Qualcomm recently held a deep-dive event on its upcoming release of Arm-based Snapdragon X2 Elite processors for Windows devices, set to launch in 2026. The APU includes the company's new Adreno X2 GPU, which it says will unlock a new level of performance, directly competing with and outperforming its Intel and AMD x86 counterparts.

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Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme gaming performance compared to the first-generation Snapdragon X Elite, image credit: Qualcomm/PC Watch.

With performance that is reportedly 2.3X faster than its predecessor, PC gaming fans will be pleased to learn that when the Snapdragon X2 Elite arrives, over 90% of the most played games will be playable at launch. This includes native driver support for DirectX 12.2 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, so the Arm-based APU won't have to rely entirely on emulation for PC gaming.

• Read more: Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Elite, Elite Extreme SoC: up to 5.0GHz with up to 18 cores

The 2.3X figure refers to the gaming performance of the flagship Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme compared to the first-generation Snapdragon X Elite, and it's impressive when you see Forza Horizon 5 go from 32 FPS to 71 FPS, DOOM Eternal go from 42 FPS to 107 FPS, and Counter-Strike 2 go from 49 FPS to 103 FPS.

And when it comes to pure PC gaming performance, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme will even outperform the competition. When comparing performance to the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V 'Lunar Lake' chip, which includes the Intel Arc 140V GPU with 8 Xe Cores, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is 50% faster on average, for gaming. When comparing performance to the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, which includes Radeon 890M graphics with 16 Compute Units, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is 29% faster for gaming.

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Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme gaming performance compared to the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, image credit: Qualcomm/PC Watch.

These results come from Qualcomm's own internal benchmarks covering over 25 games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Fortnite, Black Myth: Wukong, DOTA 2, Overwatch 2, and more. Based on these results, Snapdragon X2 Elite laptops should be able to deliver solid 1080p gaming at 60 FPS in most titles with mostly Medium settings. There's also good news for competitive and multiplayer gaming: Qualcomm has confirmed Kernel-level anti-cheat support, including Epic Games, Tencent, Roblox, Denuvo, BattleEye, and more for games like Fortnite.

It all sounds great so far, but there are still unanswered questions that will only be answered once Snapdragon X2 Elite devices become available. Will image quality be comparable to the competition? Does 100 FPS mean there are no stutters, that performance/frame times are consistent? How will it handle upscaling technology and things like Frame Generation?

On the plus side, Snapdragon's GPU Control Panel will continue to evolve and serve as the central hub for driver updates and automatic optimization for compatible games, with the company promising a consistent release schedule for new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes.