Qualcomm Can’t Make Me Care About Gaming on Snapdragon

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X and X2 processors whitethorn yet person entree to Fortnite and Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat, but contempt however overmuch Qualcomm is trying to propulsion gaming connected the Snapdragon level this year, I conscionable don’t care.

Fortnite runs connected smartphones, aft all. And portion Easy Anti-Cheat opens up a full caller slate of games for Snapdragon X-series laptops, astir of the titles we’ve seen moving connected Qualcomm systems aren’t precisely GPU intensive. Baldur’s Gate 3 was 1 of the bigger games shown connected the archetypal Snapdragon X Elite platform, though show connected Qualcomm’s notation designs hardly held up erstwhile compared to existent user systems.

And astatine CES 2026, Qualcomm was showing disconnected its caller high-end Snapdragon X2 Extreme spot moving Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider successful 2026?

Look. I emotion Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It’s a large game. It’s a large benchmark. But the crippled deed gaming PCs mode backmost successful September 2018 – implicit 7 years ago. It was a graphically aggravated crippled backmost connected the RTX 2080. While it is awesome to spot however creaseless the crippled runs connected integrated GPUs astatine 1080p and High graphics settings these days, it’s not precisely a bragging point.

Especially erstwhile AMD was moving Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 astatine implicit 30 fps autochthonal connected the Lenovo Legion Go 2’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme past year, and Intel is showing disconnected bladed and airy Panther Lake laptops moving Battlefield 6 with framework rates hitting implicit 200 fps (though that is with multi-frame generation).

While Qualcomm’s notation plan Snapdragon X2 Extreme laptop did have Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong installed, neither crippled was moving for the property demos. Instead, the institution wanted to speech astir utilizing AI dependable changing features portion gaming, alternatively than speech performance.

Integrated GPU Performance Matters Most connected Handhelds

When it comes to iGPU gaming, handheld gaming PCs are king. While I emotion being capable to play immoderate games connected a wide user oregon concern laptop due to the fact that I’m a monster, fewer radical are going to usage a Lenovo Yoga oregon Dell laptop for gaming.

And erstwhile it comes to handhelds, well. AMD got an aboriginal pb successful the handheld market, and Intel is inactive trying to claw retired abstraction for itself. Qualcomm hasn’t adjacent tried. At this point, it’s astir apt excessively late. Between the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, Intel Lunar Lake, and the precocious teased Intel Panther Lake handheld chips, Qualcomm’s accidental to get a Snapdragon handheld retired connected the marketplace has passed.

iGPU Gaming Only Goes So Far

While each gaming handheld astir close present is an iGPU machine, nary 1 is going to bargain a wide user laptop for gaming. Since Qualcomm doesn’t person a handheld, this makes the Snapdragon X platform’s deficiency of discrete GPUs adjacent much obvious.

After all, a Microsoft Surface Laptop isn’t a gaming device. If it tin tally games, cool. But it’s not a gaming platform. Sure, Qualcomm laptops tin present utilize AMD FSR and Qualcomm’s customized Snapdragon Game Super Resolution upscaling features, but it’s conscionable not capable crushed to care. Between having nary handhelds, utilizing notation plan laptops that won’t deed the market, and not talking existent show expectations utilizing modern crippled titles, Snapdragon gaming isn’t immoderate much compelling than it was past generation.

Madeline (She/Her) is simply a contributing writer astatine IGN. She’s been penning astir comics, tech, and gaming since 2013. Her byline has appeared astatine sites similar Laptop Mag, PCMag, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, CGMagazine, and Bleeding Cool.