Every Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip comes with an integrated Qualcomm Adreno X1 GPU, though the IGP’s performance varies a bit depending on the particular Snapdragon X chip in a device:
- Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100: 3.8 TFLOPs
- Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100: 3.8 TFLOPs
- Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100: 3.8 TFLOPs
- Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100: 4.6 TFLOPs
As you can see, Qualcomm’s naming conventions are a bit opaque even by the standards of the industry, so you’ll need to pay close attention when buying a Qualcomm-powered Windows laptop. Though the X1E-84-100 is the best Qualcomm chip, it’s currently exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, leaving the X1E-80-100 in the leading spot for most Qualcomm-powered laptops. This is the chip I’ll be using in my tests for this comparison.
Intel's Integrated Arc Graphics
Intel, meanwhile, provides integrated Arc graphics into some—though not all—Intel Core Ultra chips. Here, too, the details can vary quite a bit between chips. The least performant have four “Xe Cores” while the best have eight. Clock speeds vary, too.
Intel’s Core Ultra 7 155H, the one I’ll be using for this comparison, is a popular option for thin-and-light Windows x86 laptops, the form factor Qualcomm targets with its debut Snapdragon notebooks. Many expensive laptops use it for their entry-level configurations, while mid-range laptops provide it as an upgrade over an Intel Core Ultra 5.
Qualcomm Adreno X1: Games that Failed
Before diving into benchmarks, I want to address a major problem upfront: Most games currently make little or no effort to support Qualcomm’s hardware.
Qualcomm tried to build pre-launch hype with demonstrations of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Control, which both launch and run on a Snapdragon X laptop. However, many of the games I tried refused to launch, crashed at launch, or had instability problems that made them unplayable.
- PUBG: Battlegrounds has an anti-cheat system that doesn’t currently support Qualcomm’s hardware, so the game refused to launch.
- Counter-Strike 2 launched and, at first, seemed playable. However, the game frequently locked up for seconds at a time. The lock-ups seemed to be triggered by gunfire, which obviously isn’t great in a fast-paced esports shooter.
- Warframe launched to the title and login screens, but opened in an oddly scaled window that made the login button unavailable. The game crashed when I resized or maximized the window.
- Apex: Legends politely refused to launch. The game produced an error message stating Arm chips aren’t supported.
- Diablo IV launched and I was able to enter a game, but the game froze several seconds after I started moving my character, followed by a “[Prism] Device Removal – Win10/Dx12 TQ0 RT0 DLSS0 FG0” error message.
- Valheim crashed to the desktop before the game loaded to the start screen. This happened under both DirectX and Vulkan.
As I discovered in my time using the Microsoft Surface Laptop, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X delivers a stable Windows software experience straight out of the box. From web browsers to video editors, nearly everything ran without a problem. And, to my surprise, a large majority of the apps I use for everyday work already support Arm.
But PC games are a different beast. Very few PC developers bother to create Arm-compatible versions of their game. That’s when emulation tries to step in, but emulating a game is more complex than running native software and often leads to performance issues and instability.
