Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon X Plus Processor, Elite Chips

Qualcomm, a company known for software, and services related to wireless technology has revealed additional details on its previously revealed Snapdragon X Elite chips, along with the upcoming release of its Snapdragon X Plus laptop processor. Although we have seen Qualcomm processors in laptops before, this may be the first time that the company offers a chip that can quickly compete with chips from Apple, Intel, and AMD.

The entry-level laptop chip from Qualcomm is called the Snapdragon X Plus. To assist with fancy-schmancy generative AI applications, it features 10 cores, 42MB of cache, a maximum multithreaded frequency of 3.4GHz, and an NPU with 45 Tera operations per second.

In addition, the Snapdragon X Plus features an integrated Adreno GPU with a 3.8 teraflop (TFLOP) capability and supports LPDDR5x memory at a maximum transfer rate of 8448 MT/s. TFLOP, is an acronym for the number of trillion floating-point operations per second, in mathematical measurement. Even if it’s an arbitrary measurement, it seems impressive!

Additionally, three twelve-core Snapdragon X Elite processors with a maximum multithreaded frequency of 3.8GHz and a maximum 4.6 TFLOP iGPU are being released by the chipmaker. Each of the three is compatible with the same RAM at the same speed as the Snapdragon X Plus and has the same NPU. Qualcomm refers to the top two SKUs’ Dual-Core Boost, which can reach up to 4.2GHz and is comparable to AMD’s Turbo Core or Intel’s Turbo Boost. By dynamically adjusting the central processor’s frequency, such capabilities allow the processor to get extra power just when necessary.

The most notable feature of these Arm processors is that they lack the hybrid architecture found in chips from Apple Silicon and Intel, which separate the total number of cores into efficiency- and performance-dedicated cores. This architecture is a terrific method to reduce power consumption and extend battery life, as both companies have touted. However, Qualcomm maintains that all of its Snapdragon cores are “performance cores” and claims that they still outperform AMD, Apple, and Intel in terms of performance, power economy, and battery life. Additionally, Qualcomm maintains that PC games with Windows on Arm should “just work,” even when running on emulation. 

The Verge’s Joanna Nelius had a lot to say from the demonstration comparing the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite. By running benchmarks and playing games, “I was able to get some hands-on time with the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite.” Nelius added, “I wasn’t convinced that these Snapdragons will be more powerful in practice than what the other chipmakers offer, and I won’t be one way or the other until I get my hands on a finished product.” This was a highly controlled hands-on demo spread across several prototype (reference) laptops, and the programs available to “test” the new chips were chosen by Qualcomm.

Nelius disclosed that they looked like rivals. “I would be concerned if I were an AMD Ryzen 8000 series, Apple M3, or Intel Ultra Core. According to the performance data I observed at the demo event, the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite were able to outperform the Apple M3 in multicore computing but not in single-core processing on either Geekbench 6 or Cinebench 2024. When I pitted them against AMD’s Ryzen 9 8945HS and Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H in both single and multicore benchmarks, it was too close to call.”

Nelius added “Control was the only game I could test on a Snapdragon X Elite processor, and I was rather pleased with how responsive and fluid it ran in emulation. Although I wasn’t using the highest visual settings possible, the game was operating like a well-optimized console title should because I was using a controller and the frame rate was averaging 30 frames per second.”

I suspect the Snapdragon X Series chips’ claimed capacity to execute generative AI programs quicker than Intel or any other AI chip won’t be their claim to fame, as I noted in passing during a recent Vergecast. Apple has demonstrated that an Arm-based System-on-a-Chip (SoC) can significantly outperform x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD in terms of power consumption, battery life, and cooling. However, a processor that rivals Apple Silicon in terms of power, performance, and thermals would be immediately beneficial to Windows laptops because of their peculiar form factors. They have the greater potential to help expand the creative seeds of dual-screen and foldable laptops into an enormous ecosystem, much like a huge beanstalk. Up until now, Microsoft has had trouble producing any interesting Windows Arm laptops.