Early Report Indicates Snapdragon X Elite is Powerful But Runs Hotter Than Apple M3

While Microsoft has announced its Surface Laptop 7 with the Snapdragon X Elite processor, independent reviewers have not been able to test it yet. Microsoft says it will start shipping its Copilot+ PC from June 18.

Thankfully, Signal65 led by Ryan Shrout, has done extensive testing of the Snapdragon X Elite processor on Surface Laptop 7 and compared its performance with Apple’s MacBook Air M3. By the way, the research was commissioned by Microsoft so keep that in mind.

Before we wade into the analysis, I want to point out that the Surface Laptop 7th Edition is powered by the second-most powerful SKU (X1E-80-100) of the Snapdragon X Elite lineup. It has 12 CPU cores (8P+4E) and two cores can achieve a maximum frequency of 4.0GHz. The standard frequency is 3.4GHz. It also comes with fans for active cooling.

On the other hand, Apple’s fanless MacBook Air M3 features 8 CPU cores (4P+4E) and can go up to 4.05GHz.

CPU and GPU Performance

In the Geekbench 6.3 single-core test, the Apple M3 is about 15% faster than Snapdragon X Elite, but in the multi-core test, Snapdragon X Elite takes the lead by 15%. Next, in the Cinebench 2024 single-thread test, the Apple M3 is around 17% faster, but in the multi-thread test, Snapdragon X Elite outperforms by a significant 30% lead.

It’s clear that Snapdragon X Elite is slightly behind in single-core tasks, but in multi-threaded tasks, it does a superior job.

In the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test that stresses the GPU, Apple M3’s 10-core GPU is around 31% faster than the Snapdragon X Elite’s Adreno GPU. The numbers are close to 29% and 35% in Solar Bay and Steel Noman tests, respectively. Clearly, Apple has a powerful GPU when compared to Snapdragon X Elite’s Adreno GPU.

The report notes that Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Borderlands 3 ran well on Snapdragon X Elite at 1080p resolution, on low settings. To find Windows games compatible with Snapdragon X Elite, head over to our linked article.

In Speedometer and JetStream tests that evaluate the web browsing performance, M3 leads by 40% and 27%, respectively. The test was done on the native version of Chrome. In Office 365 performance, both chipsets perform nearly on the same level. Finally, in media processing tasks, the Snapdragon X Elite is about 25% faster than the Apple M3 at encoding media files.

NPU Performance

Qualcomm has often touted that it’s the leader in AI inference on edge devices, and it seems to be true. On Procyon AI Computer Vision benchmark, Snapdragon X Elite’s Hexagon NPU performed 2x better than Apple M3’s 16-core Neural Engine. That’s a remarkable feat. After all, the Hexagon NPU can perform up to 45 TOPS (trillion operations per second) all alone.

Thermal Performance

While Snapdragon X Elite performs pretty well in CPU, GPU, and NPU and rivals the Apple M3 in nearly all segments, its efficiency is slightly disappointing. Despite packing an active cooling system on the Surface Laptop 7, it touched 37.4 degrees C while running the Cinebench 2024 single thread test. In the same test, the MacBook Air touched 35.1 degrees C with no fans.

In the multi-thread test, the temperature difference becomes noticeable. The Surface Laptop 7 touched 50.3 degrees C whereas the Apple MacBook Air remained low at 45.8 degrees C. Snapdragon X Elite definitely did better than x86 processors, but in terms of performance-per-watt, it’s still behind Apple M3.

The Surface Laptop 7 also generates some fan noise when fully stressed on all cores, reaching 32.2 dbA. MacBook Air M3 remained silent, on the other hand.

Emulation Performance

The report says that Microsoft has indeed improved the Prism emulation layer on Windows on ARM (WoA). Running under emulation, the Surface Laptop 7 achieves the same level of performance as the native version of x86 apps which is a remarkable feat.

The report further states that “Emulated performance on the new device is outperforming even the native performance of the 12th Gen Core i7 previous generation Surface Laptop 5 – an impressive feat that should settle the nerves of any consumer debating the purchase of a new PC using this processor.“

Battery Life

The Surface Laptop 7, powered by the Snapdragon X Elite processor, offers up to 21 hours of battery life when playing videos, 16% more than the Apple MacBook Air M3. As for overnight battery discharge, the report says, the Surface Laptop 7 lost only 1% after 8-9 hours of overnight closed-lid scenario.

After going through the report, it seems like the Snapdragon X Elite processor rivals Apple’s M3 silicon. In most cases, the Surface Laptop 7 outperforms or matches MacBook Air M3’s performance, for $200 less. However, on the efficiency front, Qualcomm needs to work harder to close the gap against Apple Silicon. Would you be buying a Copilot+ PC? Let us know in the comments below.