Modder straps two desktop CPU coolers to ZTE handset, turns smartphone into a gaming PC — Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC with 24GB of RAM runs The Witcher 3 at 1080p ultra
- ID
- 14152
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 14 Aug 2026, 6:00 PM
- Fetched
- 14 Aug 2026, 7:22 PM
- Provider
- Tom's Hardware
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cooling/modder-straps-two-desktop-cpu-coolers-to-zte-nubia-z70-ultra-turns-smartphone-into-a-gaming-pc-snapdragon-8-elite-soc-with-24gb-of-ram-runs-the-witcher-3-at-1080p-ultra
- Source URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
Summary
- Score
- 4.5
- Created
- 14 Aug 2026, 7:23 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coders
What happened
A modder attached two desktop CPU coolers to a ZTE Nubia Z70 Ultra smartphone (Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, 24GB RAM) and successfully ran The Witcher 3 at 1080p ultra settings, effectively using the phone as a gaming PC. The cooling modification was necessary to sustain peak SoC performance without thermal throttling.
Why it matters
Demonstrates that current flagship mobile SoCs paired with adequate cooling can deliver desktop-class gaming performance, which is relevant if you are building or evaluating mobile-first game streaming, cloud gaming edge clients, or Android-based compute workloads. The Snapdragon 8 Elite with 24GB RAM is now in the same conversation as low-end discrete GPU setups for 1080p gaming.
Discussion angle
If a phone SoC can run AAA games at 1080p ultra with proper cooling, what does that imply for mobile-first compute, on-device AI inference, or edge deployment strategies where thermal management is the real bottleneck rather than raw chip capability?