- After almost seven years of inception, Google has released a native ARM version of Chrome for the Windows on ARM platform.
- It means Chrome will offer a fully optimized experience on the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processor.
- Google says Chrome's performance will get an even bigger boost on the Snapdragon X Elite platform in the coming months.
The Windows on ARM (WoA) platform was announced in 2017 with Windows 10. After almost seven years, before the Snapdragon X Elite debut, Google has released a native version of stable Chrome to run on ARM-powered Windows devices. Microsoft had already ported Edge to run on WoA, however, users were waiting for Google to bring the popular Chrome browser to the ARM platform.
Google in its blog says a full version of Chrome is rolling out this week on ARM-compatible Windows devices. Chrome has been fully optimized for the Snapdragon X Elite platform and will offer a faster and smoother web browsing experience. Google further says that Chrome on WoA will have access to all top features including extensions, themes, generative AI features, built-in security, and more.
Christiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm said:
“The new version of Google Chrome will help cement Snapdragon X Elite’s role as the premier platform for Windows computing starting in mid 2024.”
In addition, Google says that in the coming days, Chrome will get an even “bigger boost in performance” with the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite chipset. Some Snapdragon Insiders got a chance to run the stable version of Chrome on Snapdragon X Elite and compared it with Chrome on Intel Core Ultra 7 155H.
In the Speedometer 2.0 browser benchmark test, the new stable version of Chrome for WoA scored 457 whereas the Intel system achieved only 413 points. In the JetStream 2 test which evaluates JavaScript and WebAssembly performance, Chrome for WoA scored 316.765 and Chrome running on Intel’s processor scored 295.098.
By the way, even the ARM version of Microsoft Edge performs similarly to Chrome and beats Intel’s new Core Ultra-powered system. We recently reported that Windows games on Snapdragon X Elite should just work fine with x64 emulation and Qualcomm is pretty confident about it. A Snapdragon Insider ran Baldur’s Gate 3 on Snapdragon X Elite and got 30 FPS at 1080p resolution.
Now, with the official Chrome support coming to the WoA platform, it’s fast becoming a serious platform for users to consider when the Snapdragon X Elite debuts in June 2024. Microsoft is hosting an event in May where it will likely launch new Surface devices with the Qualcomm processor. A new leak also suggests that Samsung is ready to launch Galaxy Book4 “Edge” with the Snapdragon X Elite processor.
