Arm versus x86 is a battle for the ages. And 2025 was meant to be the 12 months that Arm chips lastly made inroads into the PC and certainly PC gaming. That ought to have been due to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X CPU, which seemed very promising at launch and should have been entering into its stride this 12 months.
That clearly hasn’t occurred. And but there are a number of unambiguous indicators that the Arm revolution on the PC might be imminent. Yes, for actual this time. What’s extra, fashionable Arm CPUs look very compelling on paper. When it involves single-core efficiency, all of the indications are that they’re really superior to x86. And single-core efficiency is especially essential for gaming.
The emulation game
So, where exactly are we when it comes to Arm on the PC and particularly gaming on Arm? For now, Qualcomm is the only major player in Arm chips for the PC, though Apple’s M silicon is relevant, too, and Nvidia is literally just about to get in on the game, more on which in a moment.
The problem was and is multifold. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, there are very few proper PC games that are compiled natively for Arm chips. That means gaming on Arm PCs right now means emulating x86 code on Arm CPU cores.
That, in turn, means Qualcomm is dependent on Microsoft and its Prism emulation layer for Windows on Arm. The other major limitation is that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips are essentially low-power mobile SoCs with integrated graphics.
To cut a long story short, the Adreno GPU in the first generation Snapdragon X chips isn’t terrible. But even by the standards of integrated graphics, it offers decent rather than remarkable raw rendering power.
Compared to proper desktop graphics, it’s nowhere, and that’s before you factor in support for modern features like upscaling and frame generation. Getting into PC graphics these days is a very tough gig. Just ask Intel.
Of course, that’s all theoretical hardware performance. In practice, the need to emulate x86 games puts a performance overhead on top and also means that you can’t just assume a given game is going to run, at all.
Windows on Arm upgrades
Early game support was duly very patchy. However, at the end of 2024, Microsoft released a major update for the Prism emulation layer which added in help for options like AVX and AVX2 directions, that are utilized by some video games and had been stopping some titles from working.
As we discovered earlier this 12 months, the result’s that almost all video games will now run. But the expertise stays patchy. There’s huge list of PC game compatibility for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X platform here. But what’s arguably most attention-grabbing is that even video games listed as working “perfectly” can undergo from distinctly variable body charges.
Microsoft has additionally added native anti-cheat support to Windows on Arm, a crucial function for on-line gaming. For now, it is restricted to the Easy Anti-Cheat platform in collaboration with Epic and Qualcomm Technologies. So, video games like Fortnite can now be performed on Qualcomm Arm PCs. It’s definitely a step in the precise path.
Next-gen Arm chips
Qualcomm introduced its second technology Snapdragon X2 CPUs a couple of months in the past and, sadly, it would not appear to be essential classes have been realized. Once once more, Qualcomm has been bigging up the chip’s gaming prowess, claiming that it brings “Snapdragon’s biggest advance in PC gaming.”
But the X2 is still a low-power mobile chip with integrated graphics. And it will rely on the same Prism emulation layer as the OG Snapdragon X.
In the long run, then, two things need to happen. First, games need to be compiled to run natively for Arm chips. Second, we need some proper Arm PC platforms which support discrete graphics cards, whether that’s mobile or preferably desktop.
But here’s the thing. Arm CPUs could well be worth the wait. Comparing Arm CPU core performance to traditional x86 chips isn’t straightforward. But where it can be done, the latest Arm cores look very competitive.
Indeed, it’s likely that Apple’s latest Arm CPU cores in its M5 chip offer by far the best single-core performance on the market. And Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 looks like it’s a close second. In other words, both likely offer superior per-core performance to any Intel or AMD CPU. At least they do running native code.
Nvidia enters the chat
The other big wild card in all this is Nvidia. Recently, Nvidia confirmed that its upcoming Arm chip for PCs is the same as the GB10 superchip in the DGX Spark AI box.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Nvidia’s PC chip will have exactly the same specs. But it will still very likely offer by far the most powerful graphics of any Arm platform and indeed any APU for the PC, including AMD’s Strix Halo chip. The GB10 superchip has an integrated CPU with essentially the same specifications as a desktop RTX 5070 graphics card. That’s pretty exciting.
The catch is that Nvidia faces the same game compatibility hurdles with its Arm CPUs as Qualcomm. Actually, those hurdles could be worse.
The GB10 chip runs off-the-shelf Arm CPU cores, not custom designed cores like Qualcomm and Apple, including 10 Cortex-X925 performance cores and 10 Cortex-A725 efficiency cores.
The thing is, both Qualcomm and Apple Arm chips have features baked into the hardware to help x86 code run well, including accommodations for how x86 handles memory storage. As far as I am aware, Arm’s Cortex cores do not have that.
What’s more, thus far Microsoft’s Prism emulation layer for Arm on Windows has really been an Emulation layer for Snapdragon X on Windows. It will absolutely need to be reworked for any Nvidia Arm CPU. Either that or Nvidia will have to do its own emulation layer.
Of course, if any company has the resources to push all that through, it’ll be Nvidia, the world’s most valuable corporation. But my overarching point here is that it seems unlikely that Nvidia’s first Arm chip in the PC will be killer for gaming, despite the promise of very powerful graphics.
The good news is that Nvidia has actually announced a next-gen CPU architecture for its AI platform, known as Vera, that sports custom-designed CPU cores with much higher performance.
For now, there’s absolutely no indication whether those cores are destined for the PC or if they support dedicated hardware for emulating x86 code. However, what is clear is that Nvidia has engineers designing Arm cores and that is certainly significant.
Valve’s getting in on Arm, too
Aside from Nvidia, another possible big player in all this is Valve. Yes, its new Steam Machine is a traditional x86-based device. But the new Steam Frame VR headset is an Arm-powered device, again with a Qualcomm chip, albeit a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 model related to its smartphone SoCs as opposed to the PC-centric Snapdragon X.
Anywho, the consequence is that Valve has created SteamOS for Arm with its own x86 translation layer known as FEX. Jacob spoke with Valve’s engineers about this exciting project in November.
It’s obviously very early days for Steam OS on Arm. But the mere fact that a company as important to PC gaming has developed a new gaming OS specifically for Arm chips is significant. It very much adds to the momentum.
Pencil in 2028 for PC gaming on Arm
All of which leaves us with the question of when this Arm revolution for the PC will actually happen. Frankly, 2026 looks unlikely. Qualcomm’s second-gen Snapdragon X2 chip looks pretty nice. But it hardly has the makings of a gaming revolution.
Likewise, there are question marks over Nvidia’s first Arm chip in a PC gaming context. So, I’d say we need to look to 2027 or more likely 2028 and, hopefully, a second-gen Nvidia Arm chip with custom x86-optimised CPU cores. If that happens, the scene will surely be set for what could be the final battle between Arm and its ancient rival, x86.
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