The Surface Pro X isn't really built for gaming

Despite the fact that the upcoming Surface Pro X is beautiful, it’s probably a device to avoid if you’re into any kind of gaming that isn’t just playing Angry Birds.

The Surface Pro X is an ARM-based device which is set to run a full version of Windows 10. Microsoft has partnered with Qualcomm to create a custom ARM-based SQ1 chipset, giving the Surface Pro X the best performance yet.

However, this ARM CPU comes with some drawbacks, most of which are related to gaming.

As you can see in the video from Tablet Pro, which is embedded below, the Surface Pro X struggles to run Asphalt 9. Asphalt 9 isn’t too demanding, and will even run on an iPhone 5S, but you can see that the Surface Pro X causes the game to occasionally freeze and stutter in places.

Tablet Pro also points out that the Forza Horizon 4 Demo can’t be installed, due to the Surface Pro X running ARM instead of x64. The Forza Demo also requires at least 2GB of video memory, while the Surface Pro X only has, according to the Microsoft Store, “Couldn’t detect hardware.”

However, the Surface Pro X is supposed to support 32-bit applications, with no support for 64-bit at all, so the fact that the Forza Demo couldn’t be installed isn’t too surprising.

On the bright side, the Surface Pro X runs Angry Birds 2 really well. Hooray!

The bad news is that all this does just reinforce the fact that this device isn’t for heavy lifting – it’s for casual users who just want to browse the web, process some documents, or look at pictures in high definition and need something a bit bigger than a phone.

If you’re not too fussed about gaming or 64-bit applications and you’re still interested in picking up a Surface Pro X, you can pre-order one from the Microsoft Store here.