In Summary
- Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X Elite chipset at the Snapdragon Summit 2023. The Snapdragon X Elite can be a game changer for ARM-based Windows laptops, promising twice the CPU and GPU performance of the latest Windows laptop chipsets while consuming 70% less power.
- The Snapdragon X Elite has 12 Oryon cores with two high-performance cores that can clock at more than 4 GHz. Together, they deliver incredible performance and the best battery life ever achieved in a Windows laptop.
- The Snapdragon X Elite is expected to be launched in mid-2024 and will focus primarily on thin and light laptops, some of which will even be launched with fanless configurations.
Qualcomm has announced a new ARM-based chipset for Windows laptops called Snapdragon X Elite at the Snapdragon Summit 2023. The Snapdragon X Elite chipset competes with the best chipsets available for Windows laptops and is number one in most scenarios. It promises twice the performance while consuming 70% less power than the competition. This means that Windows laptops can finally achieve the performance and battery life to compete with Apple’s M-series chipsets.
The Snapdragon X Elite can essentially solve the two main problems that have plagued Windows laptops until now: sustained performance on battery and long battery life without adding the bulk, so Windows users finally don’t have to worry about battery. Let’s talk about how the Snapdragon X Elite can change the game for Windows laptops in the future and what it means for consumers.
What is Snapdragon X Elite?
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is an ARM-based chipset manufactured in a 4nm process with a 12-core Oryon CPU. Two of these Oryon cores can increase the speed to up to 4.3 GHz. Together with Qualcomm’s Adreno GPU and Qualcomm’s Hexagon NPU, the Snapdragon X Elite is complete. All this together ensures incredible performance with very low power consumption and thus exceptional battery life.
The Snapdragon X Elite also enables very fast 5G and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity as well as lossless high-fidelity audio and Snapdragon Seamless on all supported devices. You can connect up to three 4K 60Hz monitors to a laptop on the Snapdragon X Elite platform. All this makes Windows on ARM-based devices a promising overall experience.
How Does the Snapdragon X Elite Compare to the Competition?
The Snapdragon X Elite performs best in benchmarks compared to all other laptop chipsets currently on the market. The Snapdragon X Elite is faster than Apple’s M2 Max chipset in single-thread CPU performance while consuming 30% less power, and 50% faster than the Apple M2 chipset in multi-thread performance.
The Snapdragon X Elite is faster than Intel’s i9-13980HX in single-thread CPU performance while consuming 70% less power. This is an incredible gain in battery life without sacrificing performance.
The multi-thread performance of the Snapdragon X Elite is also remarkable, as it beats the Intel i7-1360P and i7-1355U processors with twice the multi-thread performance and consumes 68% less power. The Snapdragon X Elite is 60% more powerful than the i7-13800H and consumes 65% less power.
The GPU performance of the Snapdragon X Elite is not to be trifled with either. The integrated Adreno GPU is twice as fast as the integrated GPU of the i7-13800H and consumes 74% less power.
Compared to the Ryzen 9-7940HS, the Snapdragon X Elite’s Adreno GPU is 80% faster and consumes 80% less power.
After looking at all these performance benchmarks, the Snapdragon X Elite seems to be the perfect chipset to bring portable Windows computers to the forefront.
Can the Snapdragon X Elite Be the Game Changer the Windows Laptop Segment Needs?
Windows laptops are notorious for not performing well in terms of efficiency and thermal management. Even the most powerful chipsets available for Windows laptops can’t deliver sustained performance when off the charger and battery life is also average at best. The Snapdragon X Elite promises to change all that by bringing the best ARM-based computing power to the Windows laptop segment.
Looking at the benchmarks and some of the test devices presented at the event, it looks like many developers have already started porting their applications to the Snapdragon X Elite platform. One of the first applications was DaVinci Resolve, which was demonstrated on the test devices.
If the Windows app ecosystem adapts well to this platform, there should be no problem for the Snapdragon X Elite-based devices to conquer the thin and light Windows laptop segment. With the promise of exceptional performance and multi-day battery life, the Snapdragon X Elite seems to be the solution all Windows laptop users have been waiting for.
According to the official documentation, the Snapdragon X Elite supports a wide range of components, making it a very versatile chipset that can be used in many different form factors. Some fanless designs are already in the works, and as the release date gets closer, more devices should pop up on the radar.
There is still much to discover and test about this platform, but from the information available, the Snapdragon X Elite appears to be a promising competitor to Apple’s M series.
Will you be buying a Snapdragon X Elite-based Windows laptop in the future? Let us know in the comments below.