Snapdragon X Elite gaming performance termed "perfectly playable" as video of chip running Baldur's Gate 3 emerges

It is safe to say that Windows laptops have been playing catch up in the efficiency department ever since the launch of the first Apple MacBook with the company’s in-house M-series chips. As a result, MacBooks reign supreme in the realm of notebook endurance. However, the launch of the Snapdragon X Elite this summer can finally give rise to Windows laptops that not only perform like the latest x86 chips from AMD and Intel but also potentially compete with modern Apple devices in efficiency.

As a refresher, the Snapdragon X Elite features up to 12 Oryon CPU cores, an Adreno GPU with 4.6 TFLOPs of performance, and a Hexacore NPU. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X Elite can beat the Apple M2 Max in Geekbench 6.2 single-core benchmark even with a 23 W TDP. Increasing the TDP to 80 W sees the chip jump over the M2 Max by a 10% margin. In the Geekbench 6.2 multi-core tests, at 80 W and 23 W, the X Elite manages to be on par and approach the M2 Max respectively.

On the GPU side of things, Qualcomm has stated that the 4.6 TFLOP-Snapdragon X Elite is 80% faster than the Radeon 780M at the same power level. Since we know that the Radeon 780M is an iGPU capable of playing modern games at reduced settings, it is reasonable to expect the Adreno GPU of X Elite to also offer a playable AAA experience.

Giving us an idea of the Snapdragon X Elite’s GPU performance, Devin Arthur has posted a video of Baldur’s Gate 3 running on the reference Snapdragon X Elite laptop calling the experience “perfectly playable”. The title is apparently running at 1080p and “hovering around 30 FPS”.

For comparison, the Radeon 780M manages about 32 FPS in Baldur’s Gate 3 at FHD/medium per our testing. Dropping the settings down to the low preset, the iGPU pushes 40 FPS. On the other hand, the 8-core Intel Arc iGPU of Core Ultra 9 185H only achieves 32 FPS at FHD/low.

Based on the above-mentioned numbers and considering that the Snapdragon X Elite under discussion was potentially running on pre-release software, we could be looking at an iGPU that handily beats the 8-core Intel Arc iGPU while also defeating the Radeon 780M with final software.

That said, the video neither mentions the graphical settings in use nor the power consumption of the Snapdragon X Elite. So, take the information provided with a giant grain of salt.

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