Lisuan Tech GPU runs 3DMark test alongside ARM-based CPU on Windows on ARM
This is some interesting news from China, because it points to a new path for PC gaming on Windows on ARM. Neither AMD nor NVIDIA offers a Windows on ARM SoC for consumers, so this space is still dominated by Qualcomm platforms. The reason we have not yet seen any Windows on ARM systems running Radeon, Arc, or GeForce GPUs is simple: none of the major discrete GPU vendors has released Windows on ARM drivers for their cards.
For now, Windows on ARM gaming is limited to integrated GPUs such as Qualcomm’s Adreno. The OS can emulate many x86 games, but without native ARM64 WDDM drivers from AMD, NVIDIA, or Intel, discrete GPUs cannot take over rendering. Even ARM boards that expose a full PCIe x16 slot end up using Microsoft’s basic display driver, which is fine for outputting a desktop but not suitable for modern games. This might change if or when NVIDIA launches its N1 series SoC, which would pair ARM CPU cores with a Blackwell GPU in a configuration similar to DGX Spark.
Source: Bilibili
Lisuan Technology now appears as one of the first companies to show how a discrete GPU on ARM could work in real life. About four months ago, the company showcased a Lisuan GPU based on the G100 architecture, built on a 6 nm process with GDDR6 memory, DirectX 12 support, and a roadmap that suggested mass production should already be under way. Since then, though, the company’s social media accounts have gone quiet, and there have been no clear launch updates, pricing, or availability information despite that earlier schedule.
A new video on a Chinese platform changes the picture a bit. It shows a Lisuan 7G106 card paired with an ARM CPU, running the 3DMark Steel Nomad test under Windows on ARM and bringing up a DirectX 12 capability screen . That indicates Lisuan has at least an internal ARM64 Windows driver that can interface with the graphics stack on an ARM system. The demo system uses a CP8180 CPU, a 12-core ARM v9 processor with 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, a boost clock of 3.2 GHz, and a 6 nm process, originally introduced in July 2024.
Qualcomm has not done much targeted work around gaming since launching Snapdragon X Elite, although the company promises major gains with Snapdragon X2 Elite. For now, Lisuan’s demo remains a rare look at discrete GPU gaming on Windows on ARM.
| Specifications | ||
|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz.com | 7G105 (Professional) 🆕 | 7G106 (Consumer) 🆕 |
| Picture |  |  |
| GPU Model | 7G105 TrueGPU | 7G106 TrueGPU |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6 with ECC | 12GB GDDR6 |
| Max Pixel Fillrate | 192 GP/s | ? |
| Max Texture Fillrate | 384 GT/s | ? |
| FP32 Compute | Up to 24 TFLOPS | ? |
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Display Output | 4 independent displays | 4x DisplayPort 1.4a |
| Max Display Output | 8K60 HDR (10-bit color) | 8K60 HDR FreeSync, DSC |
| Video Decoding | 16x1080P@60fps | Max HEVC 8K@60fps |
| Video Encoding | 8x1080P@60fps | Max HEVC 8K@30fps |
| Virtualization | 16-way virtualization | ? |
| Security | Confidential computing protection, data encryption, secure display | ? |
| API Support | DirectX 12 / Vulkan 1.3 / OpenGL 4.6 / OpenCL 3.0 | DirectX 12 / Vulkan 1.3 / OpenGL 4.6 / OpenCL 3.0 |
