The ASUS Zenbook A16 is not a gaming laptop, but what if it were a gaming desktop? One YouTuber sought to find out what happens when you connect an eGPU to the Zenbook A16. The results are surprising and show a promising potential future for gaming on Arm processors.

Connecting the Zenbook A16 is not something for the faint of heart. Until recently, it was not possible to connect any GPU to a Snapdragon X-powered laptop, even if you were willing to use unofficial methods.

ETA Prime connected an RTX 4060 to a Zenbook A16 using the developer driver for RTX Spark. That GPU is also from NVIDIA, and its driver can be installed on a PC like the Zenbook A16 to connect an RTX 4060.

Obviously the setup is not official or optimized, but it does work to an extent. Some other NVIDIA GPUs were also successfully connected, but ETA Prime saw the best performance with the RTX 4060.

ETA Prime runs through all of the specific hardware used, but the heart of it all is the AOOSTAR AG03 Thunderbolt 5 & OCuLink eGPU Dock.

The Zenbook A16 was able to hit impressive framerates and settings when connected to the RTX 4060.

In ETA Prime's video, you'll see Forza Horizon 6, Cyberpunk 2077, Project Cars 2, and DOOM: The Dark Ages at very respectable framerates and settings.

Hitting those framerates often required frame generation, but gameplay looks smooth. In Cyberpunk 2077, ETA Prime was able to hit the low 40s at high settings without frame generation and the low 70s with frame generation.

The Zenbook A16 runs on a Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor, which is quite speedy. But the chip leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to graphics. On top of that, games are not always optimized for Windows on Arm, so you can end up with issues like Halo: Campaign Evolved missing textures and having a transparent ground.

Experimentation by ETA Prime and Ghobso Gaming (who tested Halo: Campaign Evolved) shows that Snapdragon X2 chips are capable of playing games. But those processors lack support and optimization.

If drivers ship and game developers embrace Snapdragon X-powered PCs, we could see a significant jump in gaming on Windows 11 on Arm.

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I was away from my desk dealing with disastrous flooding for the past two weeks, and during that time, a lot happened in the world of AMD processors.

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D desktop gaming CPU that the company announced at Computex 2026 finally went live on July 16 with an introductory $329 price. Just a couple of days later, the price dropped to $279.99 with a promo code at exclusive retailer Newegg.

Reviews for the Ryzen 7 7700X3D are positive enough that it makes the new chip a reasonable alternative to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which I'm seeing for as low as $361.99 at Newegg.

That's essentially $100 less for a clocked-down 7800X3D with the same 96MB of 3D V-Cache, the same eight Zen 4 cores, and the same 120W TDP. Not bad at all if you're only looking at the CPU.

Unfortunately, the numbers that matter most aren't on the CPU's page, and it goes to show that no matter how good a deal a new CPU is, memory prices continue to crush PC builds.

What did DDR5 RAM prices look like when the 7800X3D launched?

AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D launched in April 2023 with an MSRP of $449. As a gaming CPU, it was best paired with at least 16GB of RAM, better yet if you could get hold of 32GB or 64GB.

In 2023, DDR5 RAM was experiencing a supply glut, forcing prices down as manufacturers attempted to offload stock. Believe it or not, you could find DDR5-6000 kits with two 16GB sticks for anywhere between $80 and $130. I know; it's hard to believe, and it feels like the ongoing RAM crisis has been underway for a lot longer than that.

Using the top $130 end of that memory range and adding $200 for a motherboard, the cost just a couple years ago for the trio came out to about $780.

Take the $279.99 Ryzen 7 7700X3D CPU, add a conservative $400 for 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM, and toss in a $200 motherboard, and you're looking at about $900. With memory prices so volatile these days, that number could easily climb to $1,000 or more, especially once Newegg's promotion expires.

What everyone is getting wrong about the Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D, as a drop-in upgrade to an existing AM5 system with something like a Ryzen 5 7600, remains a great deal. That's assuming you already have a compatible motherboard with compatible DDR5 RAM.

But the part I think a lot of people are missing is that the Ryzen 7 7700X3D as the foundation of an entirely new build is still a terrible value. The number that should influence your next build has to do with memory, no matter what sort of discount is being offered on a CPU.

I appreciate AMD's expanding X3D selection considering they're the chips that almost every PC gamer wants in their build, but AMD could launch five other alternatives and still arrive at the same result: a situation where CPU sales suffer because supporting components are way too expensive.

This is simply a reminder that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than just sticker prices, no matter how attractive they appear. You might be swayed to grab the newest CPU because it's admittedly a great price, but don't forget to pay attention to the variables that really matter when building PCs in 2026.

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