Windows laptops with Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite chip are set to come this summer, but we’re 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, Baldur’s 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 it’s not clear what else was changed beyond that, but it does appear stable, with little to no lag.
Here's 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
This is a turn-based game where there are a lot of sudden movements and frames for the laptop’s integrated Adreno GPU chip to render, so this is indeed impressive. The frame rate counter in the top left of the screen doesn’t appear to jump below 30 frames per second (fps). That might not impress PC gamers, but it’s 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 Qualcomm’s reference laptop, so it does show the strength of the new GPU. Qualcomm previously promised that PC games should run under emulation without any extra preparation or porting, and we’ve now seen that in action. It also mentioned that these games should perform at the same level as what you’d get with the AMD Radeon 780M GPU.
Gaming and GPU power were always the weakness of Qualcomm’s older ARM-based chips for Windows laptops, so this pushes things forward to a new level.
It isn’t the first benchmark we’ve seen that shows how powerful the integrated GPU is. When it comes to testing that pushes the chip’s AI functionalities, the Snapdragon X Elite was nearly twice as fast as the integrated Intel Arc graphics on board Intel’s 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.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.