Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite has compatibility issues with many games

The launch of notebooks equipped with the long-awaited Snapdragon X Elite has killed the hype that Qualcomm worked hard to generate for the product. Contrary to promises with benchmark results, the ARM-based processor has struggled to run games in practice.

In PC World’s tests, Qualcomm’s new SoC failed with so many games that the site recommends not buying a Snapdragon X Elite laptop to play. Several games tested simply wouldn’t open or crashed, and even some common applications didn’t work, such as Adobe Premiere and After Effects.

In the games that the processor was able to run, it was well behind notebooks with Core Ultra 7. Civilization VI, for example, ran 3.5x better on the integrated Arc graphics than on the Adreno X1 iGPU present in the Snapdragon X Elite.

The comparison with Intel’s Meteor Lake components was not made for nothing. Qualcomm itself promised better performance on the Snapdragon X Elite before launch. The manufacturer was even accused of lying in its performance tests, and the results being obtained now show that, at the very least, the company was not telling the whole story.

Furthermore, just talking about compatibility itself, the folks at Tom’s Hardware make a comparison of the new Qualcomm notebooks with the Steam Deck. The official list of games ready for Windows on Arm counts 1,259 titles, while SteamDB already points to more than 15,000 titles playable on Valve’s portable.

For a long time, the main attractions of the ARM architecture were not running games. Qualcomm has faced criticism regarding the hype that the company itself sought for the Snapdragon X Elite.

The new processor can still prove to be a great alternative in terms of efficiency and performance for everyday use of new notebooks. It is also interesting to note that post-launch driver updates and more games being prepared to run natively on ARM could improve the chip’s situation.

Now, however, Qualcomm has the extra challenge of clearing the Snapdragon X Elite’s name as the Ryzen AI 300 approaches with its own hype train.

Source: Tom’s Hardware