Enthusiasts have proven that ultrabooks with new Snapdragon ARM processors can play the latest games. A blogger from the YouTube channel ETA Prime managed to connect an external Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card to an ASUS Zenbook A16 laptop, which runs on a Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor and is not designed for gaming at all.
Enthusiasts have proven that ultrabooks with new Snapdragon ARM processors can play the latest games. A blogger from the YouTube channel ETA Prime managed to connect an external Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card to an ASUS Zenbook A16 laptop, which runs on a Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor and is not designed for gaming at all.
Previously, connecting an external graphics card to laptops with Snapdragon ARM processors was impossible even by non-technical means, writes Windows Central.
To make the system "see" the video card, the blogger resorted to tricks with drivers and used a special unofficial solution for developers from another Nvidia platform (RTX Spark), and to physically connect it, he used the AOOSTAR AG03 docking station with Thunderbolt 5 and OCuLink ports.
Despite the fact that this is a homemade solution without official optimization, the video card worked and delivered excellent performance in heavy games.
In Cyberpunk 2077, the system delivered around 40 FPS on high graphics settings, and with frame generation enabled, the figure rose to over 70 FPS. Other games, including DOOM: The Dark Ages, Forza Horizon 6, and Project Cars 2, also ran smoothly and at high frame rates.
The main problem is not the power of the Snapdragon processors themselves, because they are very fast, but the lack of official support and optimization. The built-in graphics of ARM chips are still weak, and many Windows games on ARM work with bugs - for example, in Halo: Campaign Evolved, textures and floors disappeared altogether. In addition, manufacturers themselves, such as Nvidia and Qualcomm, have not yet released official drivers for connecting external video cards.
This experiment proved that thin and energy-efficient Snapdragon laptops have the potential to become full-fledged gaming stations. However, now the ball is in the court of game developers and driver creators - if they adapt their products for the ARM platform, gamers will have a big breakthrough.
