Snapdragon X Plus Laptop CPUs: What You Need to Know, Plus Early Benchmarks

Last fall at Snapdragon Summit, we got our first benchmarking look at Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite family, a line of Arm-based processors designed for laptops. Elite is no longer alone: Today, the chip maker has teased a second line of Snapdragon X chips, dubbed the Snapdragon X Plus. Qualcomm is, of course, a huge force in processors for smartphones, but it has also dabbled in chips for bigger mobile devices. And these CPUs look to be a far cry from Qualcomm’s earlier laptop efforts.

A likely part of the reason why? Snapdragon X has been developed in concert with some in-house expertise from a company called Nuvia (founded by some former Apple Silicon personnel), which Qualcomm acquired in 2021. The performance numbers on Snapdragon X Elite, in the in-person teasers we have seen, have looked very promising. A big caveat to that: Until today, we were only able to observe benchmarks being run by Qualcomm personnel, and tests of their choosing, at that.

(Credit: John Burek)

Fast-forward to now, and Qualcomm is adding that second chapter to the Snapdragon X story before the first one is even published. (Qualcomm still maintains, in its public pronouncements, that Snapdragon X Elite systems will hit the market around mid-year.) Snapdragon X Plus, as the second announced line of Snapdragon X chips, will roll out alongside the Snapdragon X Elite. The X Elite CPUs will be 12-core chips; the just-announced X Plus will be 10-core.

The two lines of CPUs will both be based on as-yet-unreleased CPU cores that Qualcomm has dubbed “Oryon.” Both X Plus and X Elite will have the same 45-TOPS-rated neural processing unit (NPU) on-die, which Qualcomm touts as the most muscular of its kind among laptop processors from any maker. 

This addition of the X Plus to the lineup is something of a surprise, but perhaps shouldn’t have been, as we’ll get into later. Less of a surprise? We got to check out a pair of samples of a Snapdragon X Plus reference system using a similar set of…yep, Qualcomm-selected benchmarks. (Admittedly, this time we were permitted to run the tests with our own hands.)

Here’s what the Snapdragon X Plus is all about, and what we saw in our brief testing session.

Adding a ‘Plus’ to the Snapdragon X Equation

Let’s recap what the Snapdragon X chips are all about, and lay out some performance claims. The primary difference between Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus will be in the number of cores, and in details like on-die cache memory and peak clock rate (and, in some cases, particulars around how many of the cores on which you’ll see those peak clocks at a time). Fundamentally, though, both lines comprise 4-nanometer processors and are Arm-compatible designs. Also, both are designed to be flexibly implemented by laptop OEMs at a variety of power levels, according to the thermal design that the laptop maker is trying to achieve or accommodate.

As noted, both lines of chips are rated for 45 TOPS on their NPUs. (In Qualcomm’s case, it calls its neural engine “Hexagon.”) Now, the actual practicality of using TOPS (short for “trillions of operations per second”) as a measure of real-world performance with AI-related tasks is still very much up in the air. But Qualcomm is playing the big-numbers game for now and posits that its 45 TOPS NPUs far outstrip the AI muscle on any laptop chip in the market today. (Of course, that’s a bit of a brag, given that Snapdragon X of any flavor isn’t on the market yet, while AMD and Intel both have NPU-equipped laptop chips out in the wild!) According to Qualcomm, Snapdragon X Plus is rated for clock speeds up to 3.4GHz across all cores and threads, and it features 42MB of total cache.

Qualcomm, of course, came to our briefing, ahem, “armed” with some gaudy performance bar and line charts. (We’ll have some of our own in a moment.) They show how Oryon, it says, performs in the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus versus the Apple M3, one of the key competitors…

(Credit: Qualcomm)

The above is from the Geekbench 6.2 test utility, using the multi-threaded CPU trial. The M3 is the base version of the latest Apple Silicon line, as implemented in the new MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros. (The test here, Qualcomm says, was performed on an M3 MacBook Pro.) It’s unclear why the single-threaded test isn’t compared, too; that will bear investigating when we get an actual in-the-wild Snapdragon X sample.

The chip maker also showed some fighting-words claims versus Intel’s Core Ultra 7 (“Meteor Lake”), specifically the Ultra 7 155H in Geekbench 6.2 (top) and Cinebench 2024 (below it)…

(Credit: Qualcomm)

(Credit: Qualcomm)

The big takeaway here, at least in Qualcomm’s view, is not so much the raw performance (well, that too; it claims it is superior on both X Elite and X Plus), but the relative performance at a given power level. The X Plus, the claim goes, delivers the same Geekbench multithreaded performance as the Core Ultra 7 155H at less than half the power, and in Cinebench 2024 at about 39% less power. The Snapdragon X’s claimed proficiency at conserving battery would stem (at least in part) from this processing-efficiency breakthrough. The X Plus’ peak performance at higher power levels is another matter; whether the X Plus gains much more performance once it passes the 155H’s thresholds on power consumption remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the on-chip graphics will be powered by a Qualcomm Adreno solution, with a 3.8-teraflops-rated GPU on the X Plus and some impressive claims around multi-display support. For example, X Plus (like the X Elite) should support up to three external 4K screens at 60Hz with HDR 10 info, as well as an internal display of up to 4K and 120Hz with HDR support. The GPU will also support AVI video-encode and decode. The Adreno claims were also bolstered with an intriguing line graph…

(Credit: Qualcomm)

The point of that comparison, done in 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme benchmark test? Qualcomm’s claiming that this Adreno solution will be at parity with the peak performance of the Core Ultra 7 155H’s Arc IGP while consuming just half the power, and deliver much better peak performance of its own (up to 36% better) if let off the leash. Mind you, this is the X Plus, not the X Elite.

So, You Thought Intel and AMD CPU Names Were Confusing?

The performance numbers look promising. The names of the actual chips, though? OK, hold out a bowl and spoon for some good old-fashioned number gumbo.

In addition to broad outlines around the Snapdragon X Plus, Qualcomm is also unveiling its initial SKU lineup of both the X Elite and X Plus laptop chips, with details on the different processor models. Up to this point, Snapdragon X was just an abstraction of sorts. For starters, this handy decoder slide from Qualcomm shows how the chip SKU names translate, as each letter and each number or number set has significance…

(Credit: Qualcomm)

In short, the full name of each chip should clue you in to the generation (all of course “1” for now), the tier (whether Snapdragon X E class or P class), a SKU number to differentiate among chips in the class (with higher numbers being better), and a further three-digit differentiator whose function remains unknown. (Spoiler: All the chips revealed so far end in “100.”)

Got that schematic tattooed on your arm…er, Arm? That means you are ready for the chip stack…

Expect three initial Snapdragon X Elite processors and one X Plus. As you can see, all of them feature the same amount of cache memory; all support LPDDR5x memory rated for the same peak transfer rate; and, as mentioned, all have the same Hexagon NPU.

The key differences are among the three versions of the X Elite. The top model is rated for a higher maximum multi-thread frequency (3.8GHz) and two-core boost (4.2GHz), as well as having a slightly upticked Adreno GPU. The two stepped-down X Elite chips are mostly the same, apart from the ability of one to boost to 4GHz on two cores, and with no such boost option on the other (capped at the 3.4GHz peak multi-threaded speed of the rest of the chip). We assume that these three SKUs are all in place to accommodate variously “binned” X Elite processors as they come off the production line. It’s also possible (nay, likely) that Snapdragon X Plus is simply an X Elite sample with a couple of subpar cores disabled on the die.

Enough X Already! Let’s Run Some Numbers Here

So, as noted, we got a chance to run a small set of supervised, pre-chosen benchmark tests on the Snapdragon X Plus. We also got to rerun them on the Snapdragon X Elite, since we did not have the opportunity the first time around to do so with our own hands. We were given access to two samples of a Snapdragon X Plus reference system, both identically configured with the X1P-64-100.

(Credit: John Burek)

Also on site were four samples of the Snapdragon X Elite, in two identically configured pairs. One was touted as a “maximum performance” model with 64GB of memory, and CPU clocking matching the spec for the X1E-84-100. The other was a step-down model (probably more indicative of a mainstream Snapdragon X Elite loadout) with 16GB of memory and CPU clocking matching up with the X1E-80-100. We’ve mapped them out appropriately below.

In our comparison set, we have two Windows x86 systems based on the Core Ultra 7 155H, the mobile CPU that Qualcomm has posed as the main Intel foil among its chips: the Asus ZenBook Duo, and the Lenovo Slim 7i Gen 9. We’d expect slightly lesser thermal performance from the Asus laptop given its unusual twin-screen design, but the Slim 7i should be a good comparable, even though it’s a bit smaller than the Snapdragon reference systems.

As you can see in our slate of CPU tests, there is some variability in how much the two X Elite samples outperform the X Plus, but there is one thing all three have in common: They top the Intel systems in almost all tests. The ones that are close (the two single-threaded trials) are essentially ties. The higher dual-core boost clock and higher multi-threaded clocking on the Elite X1E-84-100 chip asserts itself here, especially in the single-core Geekbench test and in both Cinebench 2024 runs.

The next test set comprises a graphics test (3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme) and an in-browser Speedometer trial, the latter bolstered on the Snapdragon side by a newly optimized version of the Chrome browser fashioned for Windows on Arm. (See our deeper dive into testing the new Chrome browser on Snapdragon X Elite.)

3DMark is a bit less conclusive than the earlier tests, not because the X Plus performed poorly (it was basically on par with the Elite X1E-80-100 configuration), but because we saw so much variance between the two Core 7 Ultra systems and their Arc integrated graphics on this test. The Asus machine underperformed a bit, while the Slim 7i Gen 9 had a stronger-than-expected showing. (Indeed, we tested the Slim several times to make sure we had it right.)

We’ll need a bigger variety of graphics tests with actual Snapdragon systems (and more results in our bucket of Core Ultra testing numbers) to make any sort of firm assessment of how these chips’ integrated graphics solutions shake out.

The browser test, meanwhile, holds the line versus what we saw with the Snapdragon X Elite. It’s mostly just an illustration of how well these chips can perform with optimized software, and the Chrome browser joining the Snapdragon-optimized stable for Windows on Arm is a big deal in its world.

The Outlook: Snapdragon X Elite Looks Great, But Ne ‘Plus’ Ultra?

So now we have the first look at the initial lineup of Snapdragon X chips. Where does X go from here? And is the X Plus chip maybe even more exciting than the X Elite?

It’s all down to the laptop makers. As Qualcomm noted, mid-year is still the target to see these chips in shipping systems. Some rumors, notably one by Windows Central, pegs a May 20 Microsoft event (before Microsoft’s annual Build conference) as the coming-out party for a Surface or Surfaces with Snapdragon X chips. A Surface Laptop clamshell model (or models) powered by X Elite, and a thinner, tablet-primary Surface Pro employing X Plus, would seem to make sense given the current lay of the land. But we’ll have to wait and see. It’s also possible that another laptop OEM could slide in ahead of Microsoft with its own announcement.

The June Computex Taipei trade show would seem like a good bet of a venue, too, to see the public debut of several more. After all, Qualcomm touted nine OEMs onboard with Snapdragon X last fall. (I shot the image below at the October 2023 Snapdragon Summit, and here they are, with the executive obscuring PC giant Lenovo’s logo.) Computex would be as good a place as any for the likes of Acer and Asus to tease machines on their home territory.

(Credit: John Burek)

The interesting bit will be seeing how the Elite and Plus chips get allocated into different systems. Will the Pluses end up in significantly lighter and thinner machines than the three Elites? How much overlap will there be? Will there be a vast price spread between PCs based on the top X Elite SKU versus the “lowly” X Plus? Good questions. Our take: A Plus chip that gets this level of performance and battery life into lower-cost ultraportables could be an interesting, excuse us, X-factor in the market. We don’t yet know the target laptop price ranges that OEMs are looking at, but under-$1,000 machines with X Plus could be an interesting travel alternative not just for Windows-using execs, but Mac users tied to the $999 entry point of the latest MacBook Air M3 of the moment. We simply need to see more benchmarks…and those real-world prices.

(Credit: John Burek)

All those details remain to be seen, and we’re keen to get the first Snapdragon X PCs onto the PC Labs benches to see what they can (or potentially, can’t) do outside the watchful eye of Qualcomm PR. But with mid-year approaching—and assuming Qualcomm is true to its word—it should not be long now before we find out.