#Snapdragon X Elite
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We have extensively compared the Snapdragon X Elite and Apple M3 chipsets. In terms of CPU performance, both processors are on par, however, Apple achieves identical performance at a lower frequency. On the GPU front, the Adreno GPU on X Elite can't beat the Apple M3 GPU. But it does rival the older M2 GPU. Finally, on the NPU front, Qualcomm takes the lead with the powerful Hexagon NPU.
Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus: What’s the Difference, SKUs, and Benchmarks
Arjun Sha
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Qualcomm is all set to redefine the PC ecosystem with its Snapdragon X series lineup. There are a total of four chipsets: three are from the Snapdragon X Elite platform and one is from the Snapdragon X Plus platform. The top-tier Elite variant, X1E-84-100, offers a dual-core boost up to 4.2GHz. The Plus variant offers multithreaded frequency up to 3.4GHz. The Adreno GPU can perform up to 4.6 TFLOPs on the top-end variant, but the rest of the lineup offers performance up to 3.8 TFLOPs. That said, the Hexagon NPU is the same across all chipsets, which delivers performance up to 45 TOPS.
Just before the Snapdragon X series launch, a Geekbench listing appeared running the Snapdragon X Plus chipset. It's the toned-down version of Snapdragon X Elite and comes with 10 CPU cores. The base frequency is reported to be 3.42GHz and packs 16GB of RAM. The device named "OEMMN OEMMN" is said to be the upcoming Surface Pro 10.
Qualcomm is officially going to debut the Snapdragon X series chipset for PCs on April 24th. Apart from the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite, there is another variant called Snapdragon X Plus with 8 CPU cores and 5G connectivity. Reportedly, there are as many as eight different SKUs of the chipset in different power profiles, from 23W to 80W. Lenovo is also reported to launch its first AI PC in China on April 20th with the Snapdragon X series processor.
The much-hyped AI Explorer feature which is said to come with the 24H2 update on Windows 11, might be exclusive to Snapdragon X Elite PCs only. A code snippet found in the latest insider build shows the system requirements for the AI Explorer feature to work. The PC must be powered by an ARM64 CPU and Snapdragon X Elite NPU and must have 16GB of RAM, and 225GB of storage.
First Look of Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Laptop with Snapdragon X Elite Revealed
Arjun Sha
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Here is a sneak peek of the first Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop. Courtesy of an X user, the leaked images show the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite processor in full glory. It also comes with a dedicated Copilot key. The specifications are not known as of now.
In the build-up to the launch of Snapdragon X Elite, we take a look at the x86 architecture, and how different is the ARM architecture. Can the Snapdragon X Elite fix poor battery life and thermal performance, mostly seen on Windows laptops? We tackle all these questions and try to understand the future of ARM-based PCs.
Apart from Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm is also working on a new Snapdragon X Plus variant for Windows PCs. It may come with 10 Oryon CPU cores, instead of 12, and may pack a Snapdragon 5G modem as well. Qualcomm is testing two variants of the chipset internally.
Google Chrome Arrives for Windows on ARM Before Snapdragon X Elite Debut
Arjun Sha
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After a long hiatus, Google has launched a native ARM version of Chrome for the Windows on ARM platform. The new stable Chrome for WoA brings all the latest features and it's fully optimized for running on the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processor. Google says, in the coming months, Chrome's performance will get an even bigger boost running on Qualcomm's chipset.
At the Game Developers Conference 2024, a Qualcomm Engineer presented a session on how PC games would run on the Snapdragon X Elite platform. Qualcomm is quite confident that PC games would work even when they are not ported to ARM64 architecture. The company is testing top Steam games on the new ARM platform. Besides that, Qualcomm has prepared Adreno GPU drivers for DirectX 11, 12, Vulkan, and OpenCL.
Microsoft has confirmed an event for May where it will likely unveil the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. The event is all about Surface devices and Windows 11. The next update for Windows 11 is said to bring many AI features including AI Explorer, AI Super Resolution, on-device live captioning, and more.
The Snapdragon X Elite chipset visits Geekbench yet again, and this time, running on Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Book4 Edge laptop. The benchmark score is impressive but does not outperform Apple M3. That said, Snapdragon X Elite performs better than Apple M2 and M1. A new leak also suggests that a "Snapdragon X Plus" variant exists and comes with a total of eight SKUs.
Snapdragon X Elite Benchmark Shows It’s All Set to Take on Apple M-series Chips
Arjun Sha
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Fresh listings of Snapdragon X Elite have appeared on Geekbench, and the scores suggest that it's quite close to the Apple M2 Pro chipset having 12 CPU cores. The results indicate that OEMs are testing the 23W version of Snapdragon X Elite on a preview build of Windows 11 with 32GB of RAM. While the results are promising, we will have to wait and see whether commercial laptops launched with the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite SoC deliver similar performance.
Qualcomm has finally released its AI Hub and AI Stack to run AI models locally on Snapdragon platforms, be it your smartphone or PC. The chipmaker has optimized over 75 AI models to run locally on your device. You can generate texts and images, enhance low-light images, perform image segmentation, and do much more locally. Qualcomm's AI Engine delivers 3x-4x better performance than Intel's latest Core Ultra processors.
