The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite competes well with Apple, Intel, and AMD

Journalists were able to try out the first laptops developed by Qualcomm equipped with the new Snapdragon X Elite chip. The results show a very efficient slide.

After several years of teasing, Qualcomm has finally unveiled its first chip designed for PC thanks to its all-new Oryon architecture: the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite. Several brands should offer laptops with this chip in 2024. At the moment, journalists were able to try it on two reference devices created by Qualcomm.

The brand has chosen its schedule well by lifting the ban on these first tests a few hours before the Apple conference. The latter should reveal its lineup of Apple M3 chipsets that could reclaim the crown that Qualcomm is stealing.

A very powerful chip in benchmarks

Journalists attending the Snapdragon Summit were able to run a series of benchmarks on PCs prepared by Qualcomm.

Two configurations were shown: the first “Config B” laptop with a 14-inch OLED display with a chip set to a TDP of 23W. The other is a more efficient “Config A” PC with an 80W chip and a 16.5-inch display. In other words, PCs that would compete in some way with Apple’s MacBook Pro. In both cases, there is active ventilation.

Many media outlets like Anandtak They have published the results of their benchmark sessions. The results are consistent with those presented by Qualcomm. This makes some sense because the brand controls the testing environment here. We will have to wait until the first computers are commercialized so that each journalist can conduct his own tests. But it is already interesting for the press to be able to see the performance of machines in the specified parameters.

In terms of single-core, Qualcomm’s new chip is slightly ahead of its direct competitors like the Apple M2. However, we must remember that the latter is the most accessible Apple chip. We can imagine that the Apple M2 Pro or M2 Max will retain the top spot.

And in the Cinebench test, the gap with Apple widened significantly. This is a multi-core test that pushes the Qualcomm chip to give a maximum of 12 high-performance cores. As a reminder, the Apple M2 integrates 8 CPU cores, including only 4 high-performance cores.

The Wilflife Extreme test highlights the graphics part of the SoC. Here, Apple and Qualcomm are playing an even game ahead of what AMD and Intel offer on their SoCs. However, it would be interesting to be able to compare it with devices equipped with dedicated graphics chips, in particular Nvidia’s GeForce.

Limitations of this calling plan

Although an impressive showing on paper, a few things need to be put into context. First of all, the first computers with Snapdragon I heard about were Apple’s M4 chipset. Likewise, AMD and Intel should have enough time to prepare a new generation of chips for the Snapdragon X Elite.

Moreover, the main obstacle to adopting a Snapdragon X Elite-powered device today remains Windows’ lack of adaptation to ARM platforms. The chips developed by Qualcomm are very advanced, but it’s easier to use a Windows laptop with an AMD or Intel chip.

However, the first results for the Snapdragon X Elite are positive. We’re too excited to get our hands on the first PCs to notice them for ourselves even if we can finally discover that Windows is putting a real foothold in this transformation that has been so successful for Apple.