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How Good is Windows on Arm With Snapdragon X? (windowscentral.com) 89

Posted by EditorDavid from the in-the-chips dept.
A new powerful chipset has arrived to take on x86 CPUs and Apple's M5, writes Wccftech.

The blog Windows Central writes that "Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 processors are here" — and they run Windows: Microsoft has done a massive amount of work to improve compatibility and has also convinced developers to embrace Windows 11 on Arm. Users of Windows 11 on Arm PCs spend 90% of their time on Arm-based apps that run natively. Additionally, apps that do not run natively can often run through Prism emulation, which has improved dramatically since launch...

[A]pp compatibility issues are overblown by many, and unfortunately those sharing false information are the same folks people rely on to make purchases... Works on Windows on Arm maintains a list of compatible apps and games for the platform. There, you'll see well-known apps like Google Chrome, the Adobe Creative Suite, and Spotify. We also have a collection of the best Windows on Arm apps to help you out. Snapdragon X PCs aren't gaming PCs, but there is a growing library of games that can run on the chips.

How Good is Windows on Arm With Snapdragon X? More | Reply

How Good is Windows on Arm With Snapdragon X?

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  • Windows on Anything Not So Good Lately (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @05:56PM (#66090524) Homepage
    Windows has been thoroughly enshitified. Before, it was no longer your computer; then it was no longer your privacy; now, it's no longer your data.

    • Windows has been thoroughly enshitified. Before, it was no longer your computer; then it was no longer your privacy; now, it's no longer your data.

      ARM Windows on Apple Silicon is pretty good. Unfortunately you need Parallels to run it in a VM, there is not Boot Camp option that would allow a native book like with Intel.

      Similar for ARM Debian on Apple Silicon.

      Basing this on experience with a Mac mini M4 w/ 24 GB RAM.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Similar for ARM Debian on Apple Silicon.

        You can boot Linux on Apple Silicon, at least up to M2 or M3 CPUs. Asahi Linux is made for it, but if you want to apply the kernel patches (there are a lot of them), you can get Debian running as well. Just make sure you get the Rust compiler working - the Apple Silicon drivers use Rust extensively and it would not surprise me if it was the driver behind the Rust integration.

        The reason M4 isn't working is because the boot chain is different now thanks to all the Spect

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Similar for ARM Debian on Apple Silicon.

          You can boot Linux on Apple Silicon, ...

          I know. And I have an M1 if the M4 is troublesome in that regard. But it runs so damn well on the M4, right there in a window on the Mac desktop so I have commercial and FOSS, Linux and BSD. I don't feel the need to bother to natively boot.

          I will admit I am hoping that with the end of the Qualcomm exclusivity agreement with Microsoft, Apple will reintroduce Boot Camp.

          When the M1 no longer gets macOS upgrades I'll probably install Asahi. That's what I've done with an old Intel Mac laptop, although I us

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yep. And that is not a temporary set-back. Things are also getting less and less stable, reliable and secure. Time to move on.

      • Between Windows getting shittier and shittier, Windows laptops getting shittier and shittier, and RAM prices surging, now's the perfect time to switch. With the RAM pricing, a MacBook Pro is actually priced considerably less than a comparably specced ThinkPad, and the Air/Neo are cleaning up on the lower end laptops. I really wish there was hardware similar in build quality to the MacBooks that ran Linux, but for now there's not. Yes, I'm aware of Asahi Linux, but that's not quite there yet, but hopefully i

        • "With the RAM pricing, a MacBook Pro is actually priced considerably less than a comparably specced ThinkPad"

          Well, as of yesterday, maybe. Is Apple immune to supplier pricing?

  • Overblown? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @05:59PM (#66090526)
    Like the users in my class who just switched to linux?

    This all sounds like some political hack yelling "Fake News!

    Sorry, things don' run very well on AMD or X86 in W11 either

  • At least when the workloads haven't been heavily optimized for those processors. Those amazing benchmark figures you're seeing from Apple or for applications that have been hand-optimized and that Apple included specific silicon to optimize for. Apple has the advantage that they know a lot of their users are going to use Adobe products almost entirely so they built hardware around that and Adobe coded to it.

    There is nothing wrong with that. There are obvious advantages to buying purpose-built hardware.

    • The main advantage to an arm processor is the incredible battery life you can get out of them.

      Well, there's also the lap-cooking advantage... as in ARM devices don't.

      I have an M3 MacBook Air from work, while my personal laptop is a 2020 Intel MacBook Pro. That Intel Mac routinely gets too hot to be comfortable sitting on my lap, while the M3 Air barely even gets warm running the same applications via Rosetta emulation.

    • Re:X86 chips still run rings around arm processors (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nebulo ( 29412 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @06:35PM (#66090564)

      Tell me you don't us Adobe products on the Mac without telling me you don't use Adobe products on the Mac.

      Adobe might have gotten their start on the Mac with Photoshop, Illustrator, et. al. but you'd never know it by using their apps today. Nothing about their user interfaces follows anything resembling platform standards; they are very poor platform citizens in many ways. And the notion that Apple and Adobe might work closely to produce silicon and code that are optimized for each other is laughable. The relationship between them frosted over when Steve Jobs refused to let Flash onto the iPhone and has never really recovered.

      • Re:X86 chips still run rings around arm processors (Score:4, Funny)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @06:52PM (#66090598)

        Tell me you don't us Adobe products on the Mac without telling me you don't use Adobe products on the Mac.

        Adobe might have gotten their start on the Mac with Photoshop, Illustrator, et. al. but you'd never know it by using their apps today. Nothing about their user interfaces follows anything resembling platform standards; they are very poor platform citizens in many ways. And the notion that Apple and Adobe might work closely to produce silicon and code that are optimized for each other is laughable. The relationship between them frosted over when Steve Jobs refused to let Flash onto the iPhone and has never really recovered.

        I've used Photoshop and the creative suite many year - Photoshop when it was only Photoshop No number or CS product.

        So here's the skinny. I updated to a Mac Mini from an intel mac. First time I logged into the CS, it told me it was updating my sub for the M4. The results were so much faster that I was shocked. It's a guess since I don't have the intel mac, but at least 10X. So while Adobe might have been pissed at Jobs, they know where their bread is buttered.

        • There is a difference between what the OP is stating in that Adobe and Apple have conspired to give their customers false impressions of performance on ARM and Adobe optimizing their software on a specific platform for their customers. From what I remember, Adobe did not have ARM versions of their software right away when Apple launched their M series processors. The main reason I remember is Intel launched a PR campaign against Apple silicon where they tried to rig different benchmarks, one of which compar

          • There is a difference between what the OP is stating in that Adobe and Apple have conspired to give their customers false impressions of performance on ARM and Adobe optimizing their software on a specific platform for their customers.

            I'm not certain how many of us actually care about benchmarks, whether that conspiracy is true or not.

            My wants are a computer that works quickly with every program designed for it. Give me a reason to prefer benchmarks over boots on the ground performance.

            • The reason to âoepreferâ them is that you can get directly comparable results for many machines without having to go and test every single machine. The trade off is that the results you get are only an approximation of the tasks you might want to do.

              If you want to run blender, and do movie quality frame renders, then the various benchmarks that test that are a great way to compare. If you run solidworks and need to know how quickly itâ(TM)ll compute a complex union⦠wellâ

            • I'm not certain how many of us actually care about benchmarks, whether that conspiracy is true or not.

              Many of us do not put full faith in benchmarks as the only facts; however, benchmarks can be used as general guidelines as to whether one machine performs better than another. The conspiracy that somehow Apple and Adobe were colluding to fool consumers seems very paranoid especially when history seems to contradict it. One would think if Apple and Adobe colluded on the M series of chips that Adobe would have ARM specific versions right after Apple launched their ARM processors. They did not which suggests A

              • My wants are a computer that works quickly with every program designed for it. Give me a reason to prefer benchmarks over boots on the ground performance.

                Quote>

                And how would anyone besides you know your work flow?

                I interact with other users of similar workflow. We compare notes, we share boots on the ground experiences. If I try something out it works or does not work well, I share it with them, and the other way around as well. A cohort told me "you really have to use an M series machine for Photoshop and any rendering you do like AI sharpening" Bought one with a sweet tradein on my Intel Mac, and he was so right.

                Benchmarks simulate general work flow. Some reviewers devise their own benchmarks that mimic what they do; however, they concede they cannot anticipate every person's needs. If you find a reviewer/benchmark that uses your work flow, go with it.

                I have to trust them first. The people I network with have that boots on the ground experience, every

        • > So while Adobe might have been pissed at Jobs, they know where their bread is buttered.

          On the side that lands on the carpet :)

          • > So while Adobe might have been pissed at Jobs, they know where their bread is buttered.

            On the side that lands on the carpet :)

            And if you tie that bread on the back of a cat, you can get perpetual motion!

        • Thatâ(TM)s not adobe knowing where their bread is buttered, thatâ(TM)s Apple having designed a ridiculously fast CPU.

      • The relationship between them frosted over when Steve Jobs refused to let Flash onto the iPhone

        I'd say it was before that: NAB '98, when Adobe refused to put a Mac in their booth running Premier.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Malc ( 1751 )

        Adobe Premiere Pro was a launch day application for Apple Silicon. That doesn't happen by accident with Apple's level of secrecy. Apple made sure the ecosystem was seeded with flagship products that worked well.

        • Adobe Premiere Pro was a launch day application for Apple Silicon. That doesn't happen by accident with Apple's level of secrecy. Apple made sure the ecosystem was seeded with flagship products that worked well.

          Apple working with Adobe to make sure their flagship program works is a very different thing than accusing Apple of conspiring with Adobe to rig performance metrics to fool consumers in thinking the M1 was faster than it is.

    • At least when the workloads haven't been heavily optimized for those processors. Those amazing benchmark figures you're seeing from Apple or for applications that have been hand-optimized and that Apple included specific silicon to optimize for. Apple has the advantage that they know a lot of their users are going to use Adobe products almost entirely so they built hardware around that and Adobe coded to it. There is nothing wrong with that. There are obvious advantages to buying purpose-built hardware. And it's kind of neat that we have computers for that for the first time in a long time. Benchmarks are good and all, but it is really cool when the damn thing works.

      And W11, has trouble working on any processor I have.

    • Yeh, youâ(TM)re right, itâ(TM)s only

      - clang
      - gcc
      - Premiere
      - Photoshop
      - Affinity Photo
      - Blender
      - Cinema 4D
      - Cyberpunk
      - DaVinci Resolve
      - All local AI agents
      - geekbench
      - Mozilla Kraken
      - passmark
      - handbrake
      - â¦

      I mean, we can all go and find the commits to gcc and blender made specifically to design those bits of software for a cpu that most people donâ(TM)t have, right?

      Everyone knows that even though these CPUs are faster at running literally everything the reviewers can find to throw a

    • Mostly because people expect modern laptops to be these dainty little things with barely enough watt-hours in the battery to run a single strand of Christmas lights. If a bit of chonk was tolerated in the physical design, it'd be absolutely no problem to nail that "all day battery life" even with an x86 CPU.

      Of course, I also kinda have to wonder where the hell are people working that they can't just plug in somewhere for a bit and top back up,

      • I mean, yes, they expect laptops to not cook and crush their laps⦠itâ(TM)s literally the first design requirement. That said, even if chonk *was* permitted, it appears that the MacBookPro would still win. The M5 Max MBP appears to be quicker even than giant 19â inch thick workstation laptops with high end CPUs and discrete GPUs. Even more so when you unplug them, and run off battery.

        https://youtu.be/ieog1kj1AQE [youtu.be]

    • This is less and less true as time goes on, and only for either heavily parallelized processes, processes that require ENORMOUS amounts of memory, or processes that require extreme amounts of GPU. Even then, the GPU gap is getting smaller if you're not talking about gaming.

      I compile Unreal Engine for my job. I do it a lot. My M1 Mac Mini, 5 years old, keeps up astonishingly well with my work-issued i9. I'm sure an M5 would blow it out of the water.

      I'm sure there are workloads where what you're saying is tru

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's difficult to compare CPUs because on the Apple side you are comparing the whole machine.

        RAM is on the same carrier as the CPU, tightly coupled for maximum bandwidth and the lowest possible latency. The SSD is soldered on and also highly optimized.

        One massive downside for workstations is lack of ECC support. My machines have ECC RAM, which means it runs slower than high end gaming kits, but I know that the data isn't getting corrupted, or if it is at least I'll know about it.

        When you compare Apple Silic

        • So what youâ(TM)re saying is âoeitâ(TM)s difficult to compare different designs because theyâ(TM)re different designsâ?

          Yes the memory is on the package, and that helps make it fast⦠but thatâ(TM)s literally the point, designing a system to have memory integrated into the package makes it (among other things) ludicrously fast.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Yes, the downside being you must buy Apple's memory at Apple's prices, and ECC is not an option.

            M4 and M5 don't support as much RAM as M3, which goes to 512GB. If you have 512GB of RAM, you probably want ECC.

            Doing large compiles is a good example of something where you want lots of ECC RAM.

        • RAM is on the same carrier as the CPU, tightly coupled for maximum bandwidth and the lowest possible latency. The SSD is soldered on and also highly optimized.

          If you have looked at Windows laptops recently that's already happened. RAM and SSDs are soldered on many of them.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Sadly yes, particularly with AMD machines because they benefit more from fast RAM than Intel ones do.

      • Even at enormous parallelisation these days the M5 is up there.

        The only two non-overclocked CPUs that beat the M5 Max at parallel work on geekbench are the threadripper 9985WX, and the 9975WX. Those are 32/64 core CPUs and the 18 core M5 Max is basically as fast.

        For graphics, the M5 Max is also basically competing with the best. It appears to be around the same performance as a 5070Ti, while somehow consuming only 25W. I have no doubt that the M5 ultra will be competing with the 5090.

    • Speak for yourself. We moved a lot of our AWS workload onto the Arm VMs and where pretty shocked to see how good the performance is. Bang for buck, theres not a lot of reasons left to stick with Intel for compute.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Malc ( 1751 )

      Anybody doing special hand optimisation for Arm processors has probably spent years optimising for Intel chipsets as well, so you can't really call bullshit on that.

      Indeed, Apple have popped up and offered us some advice to improveme our SIMD optimisations that we'd done for Arm/NEON, and found an extra 10% speedup. Those optimisations are good for all Arm systems though, whether they're on-prem Ampere Altras or Amazon Graviton instances. And believe me, we've spent years tuning threading, writing better

    • I've got a Lenovo notebook with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X (not even an X Pro or and X2), and it easily beats Intel i5 notebooks in raw performance on plenty of things written in plain C or C++ with no ARM-specific optimisations. But on top of that, it does it without getting hot or needing to spin the fans up. Even when it doesn't come out faster, it's still far more pleasant to use, being running cooler and quieter while being lighter and having better battery life.

  • WWDC 2005. Jobs reminds devs that working in XCode has real benefits, in this case hitting the âoelittle toggle switchâ to build the Intel version of your PPC app. Theo Gray and his lead Mac dev Rob take the stage to show how Mathematica got ported in minutes. Very cool clip. Then they have Adobe exec come out and say how excited they are for Mac on Intel, thanks, gotta run. Alas, Adobe rolled their own, and in fact it was a year before they had Photoshop running on Intel.

    • While PhotoShop is native, Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader have to run emulated. No native port.

      If you're a content consumer, there's probably enough for you to get by with ARM. If you're a content creator? LOL

      And don't even fucking get me started on printer drivers.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        The whole "content consumer" versus "content creator" thing is silly. But your implied definition of "content creator" as someone who uses Acrobat goes right into hilarious.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nebulo ( 29412 )

      To get a sense of the challenge Adobe faced, consider that Photoshop and other Adobe apps were originally engineered using Apple's MacApp development framework – originally released in 1985, last updated by Apple in the last 90s/early 2000 – and that Adobe was STILL using a heavily modified version of MacApp for their apps as late as 2025, *including their iOS apps*.

      https://daringfireball.net/lin... [daringfireball.net]

  • It's still windows... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by daninaustin ( 985354 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @06:34PM (#66090558)
    It's still windows, so how good could it really be?

  • ... CPU. Obviously. That's the whole point. How else do you think they can sell "upgrades" every few years?

  • App Compatibility IS an Issue for some (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ronin Developer ( 67677 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @06:42PM (#66090574)

    I run Windows 11 for ARM in a Parallels VM on my M4 Max MBP.
    Frankly, it runs well for 95+% of the apps I and most people use daily.
    But, the apps that don't are a big issue. And, they are from the very company that offers Windows 11 for Arm. Yeah...that company...Microsoft.

    In particular, it's the Microsoft SQL Server suite of tools. Most notably, Microsoft SQL Management Studio as I ended up running SQL Server in a Linux Docker container. But, managing it without MSMS has been difficult. I ended up using BeeKeeper and a tool from DevArt. Still, they don't offer backup and restore functionality so I had to write my own.

    Now, I expect Microsoft to, eventually, get off their ass and provide an ARM compatible version. I suspect they waited this long to stick it to Mac Silicon users as long as possible. The Chromebooks aren't powerful enough to run SQL Server and that was their own ARM product. So, why bother, right?

    But, with the right tools, Windows 11 for ARM runs really well. Snapdragon might be enough for Microsoft and other vendors too lazy to close the gap once non-Apple Silicon machines become available.

    • Huh. I am surprised to hear that Microsoft SQL Management Studio doesn't run. The usual problem children are either programs that are using specific x86 instructions (e.g. games with AVX2), or programs that need kernel mode drivers. MSMS doesn't fall into either of those categories.

      • No, the usual things are where the company making the software has (usually for PHB related reasons) decided not to press the compile button for another platform. The fact that even Microsoft is in this camp shows how ludicrously bad the windows on arm situation is. All MS needed to do was take the Apple approach of âoebuild it for the new hardware or youâ(TM)re not getting to release it on our storeâ, and then âoeweâ(TM)re removing support for legacy x86 applicationsâ, and t

    • What caused you to choose the ARM version of Windows? I would think that since you have to run Windows in Parallels(a virtualization emulator) anyway, that you'd choose to virtualize the x64 version of Windows. Why did you choose to virtualize the ARM version of Windows which will then have to emulate for many apps that are x64 only?

      Speaking of SQL Management studio and emulation, they claim that SQL Managament Studio IS compatible(emulated) with the ARM version of Windows. So, what's broken?
      https://www.wor [worksonwoa.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Malc ( 1751 )

        You can run x86 builds of Windows in Parallels on Apple Silicon? I didn't know that. I didn't think that was possible because it just offers virtualisation, not emulation. I thought you had to let Windows on Arm do the emulation to run x86 Windows apps. Also, isn't Parallels just a wrapper around Apple's virtualisation framework these days anyway?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        I don't think you can run x64 Windows in Parallels on the M series macs. At least you couldn't do that last time I tried it. Windows has its own x86 emulator that works pretty well within Windows for ARM.

      • I would think that since you have to run Windows in Parallels(a virtualization emulator) anyway, that you'd choose to virtualize the x64 version of Windows.

        No can do on an Apple Silicon Mac.

  • The obvious caveat is x86 apps where performance is critical. I have a graphics app which is important to me that is, and always will be, dog slow on Snapdragon. It just seems like Microsoft hasn't done as good a job as Apple did of working with developers to get apps over to Arm. It might just be there are more important legacy apps on Windows than there were on MacOS.

  • The Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-94-100 in the Zenbook A16 UX3607 has lower CineBench and GeekBench scores than the M5 Pro in a 2026 MacBook Pro by 20% or more. The GPU comparison is even more stark, with the X2 coming in at half the performance of the M5. At the same time, the X2 consumes more than twice the power to do the same amount of work. While Qualcomm Snapdragon has improved, it's still a considerable distance behind Apple Silicon.
  • how good is Linux? I want a laptop that is silent and lasts as much as a macbook air if not better. What are the caveats of running Linux on arm?
  • When will Linux be stable on the Snapdragon X?

    • >"When will Linux be stable on the Snapdragon X?"

      And your answer will need to come from Qualcomm, not from Linux. Because, from my understanding, it is their fault.

    • I have been to all of the QC Snapdragon briefs, know the engineers personally, and have written about the shitshow on SemiAccurate.com extensively, basically I know what is going on. QC doesn't understand what they are doing and why, and there is ZERO internal impetus to change from the people on top. They do nearly nothing on software enablement because, "That is Microsoft's job". Drivers are intentionally locked down and encrypted to block Linux, and x86 compatibility is BETTER in hardware than the Mac Mx

  • It sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paul_engr ( 6280294 ) on Sunday April 12, 2026 @08:00PM (#66090680)
    Doesn't matter if the architecture performance is good or bad. Windows is an absolute dumpster fire today on all platforms, full stop.

  • MICROS~1 engulfe and devour /s (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > Microsoft has done a massive amount of work to improve compatibility and has also convinced developers to embrace Windows 11 on Arm.

    Microsoft has done a massive amount of work to prevent Snapdragon running on Linux. Through exclusive contracts and restricting access to technical information.
  • Windows is so enshitified at this point. If you're seriously going to jump architectures, and have to deal with the incompatibilities and having to potentially find new software that works with your workflow. You might as well just jump a little farther and go with Linux. I finally did it last year and have no plans to ever go back.

  • It's unclear what Microsoft is hoping for but when this is finally buried I bet it would be a catastrophe that dwarfs their whole Windows Phone shenanigans, when they put into the ground both their mobile OS (coming since well before there were even iPhones) and the whole Nokia's mobile business that they bought and buried. And they managed to do this over the whole "wild west" of days of smartphone introduction and raise.

    They just don't get it that Windows is valuable because it's Windows, because all your

  • I think that the only reasonably safe way to use MS Windows these days (... if you absolutely need to run Windows for anything) is to run it in a virtual machine that allows snapshots.

    That way you would be able to revert the machine after a bad Windows Update, which these days have been far too many.

    And that virtual machine has to be run under Linux or Mac ... and Snapdragon X supports neither.

  • If I'm switching architectures, I'm taking the opportunity to also switch OSes to literally anything but Microsoft.

  • Hardware platforms are designed to run real operating systems. Nobody cares how fast or how well a shitty collection of spyware, rentware, adware, bloatware, shovelware, and data-rape runs on a specific hardware platform. Especially when that shitty collection is all being migrated to The Cloud anyway.

  • Seriously, give me one of these new snapdragon laptops that can run linux with full hardware support.

  • Compatibility is still an issue, because the amount of just weird that people run on Windows boxes, you can't keep up. On macOS, almost everything is ported over. Rosetta is just "give a shot if you really need something that old" safety net.

    Panther Lake really closed the gap on battery life. I've seen some real life reviews and it remarkable how much better it gotten on the Intel side. Of course, there is still a gap to ARM (both Qualcomm and Apple Silicon), but it's not large enough to put up with the oth

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