Windows laptops with Qualcomms ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite chip are set to come this summer, but were already getting a preview of how good the devices will be for gaming. A recent video surfaced online showing how one of the most popular PC games, Baldurs Gate 3, can run on a Qualcomm reference laptop with the chip and it does look to be pretty impressive.

As shared by Devin Arthur on X, Qualcomm ran this game on a sample laptop at 1080p resolution. The demo was done in a public setting, and its not clear what else was changed beyond that, but it does appear stable, with little to no lag.

Heres a demo of Baulders Gate 3 running at 1080p hovering around 30FPS, which is perfectly playable! https://t.co/ZieiHtzRlN pic.twitter.com/VvFKbUVK5J

Devin Arthur (@Lexcyn) March 25, 2024

Related This is a turn-based game where there are a lot of sudden movements and frames for the laptops integrated Adreno GPU chip to render, so this is indeed impressive. The frame rate counter in the top left of the screen doesnt appear to jump below 30 frames per second (fps). That might not impress PC gamers, but its certainly better than what standard integrated graphics have been able to achieve in the past.

Just as a comparison, when we ran this same test on a higher-end MacBook Air with the M3 chip, we hit around 40 fps to 50 fps, on varying graphics settings and a higher screen resolution. So, Qualcomm might have just caught up to Apple when it comes to GPU performance.

To be clear, this game is running under emulation on Qualcomms reference laptop, so it does show the strength of the new GPU. Qualcomm previously promisedthat PC games should run under emulation without any extra preparation or porting, and weve now seen that in action. It also mentioned that these games should perform at the same level as what youd get with the AMD Radeon 780M GPU.

Gaming and GPU power were always the weakness of Qualcomms older ARM-based chips for Windows laptops, so this pushes things forward to a new level.

It isnt the first benchmark weve seen that shows how powerful the integrated GPU is. When it comes to testing that pushes the chips AI functionalities, the Snapdragon X Elite was nearly twice as fast as the integrated Intel Arc graphics on board Intels Core Ultra CPUs. More testing will be needed, but Qualcomm might as well be onto something here and could shake up the gaming laptop industry.