Qualcomm has been talking about the Snapdragon X series for quite a while now, with its custom Oryon cores first being announced way back in 2022. These cores and the Snapdragon X series of SoCs are Qualcomm's answer to Apple's Arm-based chips, and we finally learned more at Microsoft's big Surface and AI event on May 20, where the Snapdragon X Elite was properly shown off in a Surface device.
Qualcomm also revealed the full range of SKUs for the Snapdragon X Elite a while ago, along with the Snapdragon X Plus. The Snapdragon X Plus is a cut-down version of the Snapdragon X Elite with fewer cores and lower clock speeds. The Snapdragon X Plus was then announced in yet another SKU at this year's IFA in Berlin, Germany, with Qualcomm revealing a Snapdragon X Plus 8-core variant that would power cheaper laptops.
Qualcomm Oryon: Everything you need to know about the new custom silicon
Qualcomm announced new CPU cores called Oryon at its Snapdragon Technology Summit in 2022. Here's everything that you need to know about it.
What laptops have a Snapdragon X SoC?
There are currently 18 available
Microsoft, Qualcomm, and a ton of PC and laptop vendors all announced their new Snapdragon X-powered laptops on May 20th. These are all "AI PCs" according to Qualcomm and Microsoft, supporting Copilot+, a new set of AI features that run locally on-device. With the launch of the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, there are now 18 laptops available powered by Snapdragon X SoCs.
- Microsoft Surface Pro 11: Snapdragon X Elite
- Microsoft Surface Laptop 7: Snapdragon X Elite
- Dell XPS 13 (2024): Snapdragon X Elite
- Dell Inspiron 14 Plus: Snapdragon X Plus
- Dell Inspiron 14: Snapdragon X Plus or Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
- Dell Latitude 7455: Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus
- Dell Latitude 5455: Snapdragon X Plus or Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
- HP OmniBook X: Snapdragon X Elite
- HP EliteBook Ultra: Snapdragon X Elite
- Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Snapdragon X Elite
- Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Snapdragon X Elite
- Lenovo IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1: Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
- Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
- Lenovo ThinkBook 16 Gen 7: Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
- Acer Swift 14 AI: Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus
- Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge: Snapdragon X Elite
- Asus Vivobook S 15: Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
- Asus ProArt PZ13: Snapdragon X Plus (8-core)
The Snapdragon X Plus and the Snapdragon X Elite are the only two SoCs available, though Qualcomm has confused things somewhat by creating a clear divide between the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core and the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core. These are significantly different chips, more than just a core count change, but on the surface don't appear to be different.
We also know that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will come with Oryon cores, similar to Apple's strategy of its M series chipsets being directly linked to its A series of chips in its iPhones. These are obviously not laptops, but show that Qualcomm has long-term plans for its Snapdragon X series in its wider ecosystem, too.
Here are all the 14 Snapdragon X laptops announced this week
Microsoft held one of its biggest events ever this week, and there were a whopping 15 new laptops to kick off the new era of Windows on Arm.
What are Qualcomm's Oryon cores?
Windows on Arm, but this time, better
Qualcomm has been doing Windows on Arm for quite a while now, but Oryon is a significant departure from Qualcomm's previous strategy of licensing cores from Arm. Qualcomm has more control over the development process by designing its own cores. This gives the company the flexibility to make major changes to the cores, ultimately allowing it to compete more effectively with other chipmakers, particularly Apple with its line of custom chips.
The arrival of these Oryon cores in the Snapdragon X series is hoped to have a major impact on the laptop market. Qualcomm hopes that Oryon will enable laptops powered by their chips to compete with Apple laptops in terms of performance, battery life, and thin designs. Apple laptops are highly regarded for these qualities, and if Qualcomm can achieve similar results with its Oryon cores, it could be a game-changer for it and the industry.
Previously, Qualcomm would license its cores from Arm, using cores like the Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720, and Cortex-A520 when it comes to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. These are off-the-shelf cores and are why you'll see similar configurations from the likes of MediaTek. There are no more Cortex cores when it comes to Snapdragon X, as Qualcomm is designing the cores itself.
What Snapdragon X SKUs are there?
These are all of the Snapdragon X chips so far
Qualcomm has now announced the part numbers and the layout of all of the Snapdragon X chips so far. There are five different SKUs of the Snapdragon X Elite and two of the Snapdragon X Plus. The big difference is the drop in cores, though the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core also decreases its total cache and TFLOPS capabilities. The most powerful SKU of the Snapdragon X Elite manages a dual-core boost of up to 4.3GHz, and all SKUs have the same NPU, and memory transfer rate.
|
Platform |
Part number |
Cores |
Total cache |
Max multithreaded frequency |
Dual Core Boost |
TFLOPs |
NPU TOPS |
Memory type |
Transfer rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Snapdragon X Elite |
X1E-00-1DE |
12 |
42MB |
3.8 GHz |
4.3 GHz |
4.6 |
45 |
LPDDR5X |
8448MT/s |
|
Snapdragon X Elite |
X1E-84-100 |
12 |
42MB |
3.8GHz |
4.2GHz |
4.6 |
45 |
LPDDR5x |
8448MT/s |
|
Snapdragon X Elite |
X1E-80-100 |
12 |
42MB |
3.4GHz |
4.0GHz |
3.8 |
45 |
LPDDR5x |
8448MT/s |
|
Snapdragon X Elite |
X1E-78-100 |
12 |
42MB |
3.4GHz |
None |
3.8 |
45 |
LPDDR5x |
8448MT/s |
|
Snapdragon X Plus 10-core |
X1P-64-100 |
10 |
42MB |
3.4GHz |
None |
3.8 |
45 |
LPDDR5x |
8448MT/s |
|
Snapdragon X Plus 8-core |
X1P-42-100 |
8 |
30MB |
3.2GHz |
None |
1.7 |
45 |
LPDDR5x |
8448MT/s |
How powerful is the Snapdragon X Elite?
Benchmarks suggest it's good
Benchmarks suggest that the Snapdragon X Elite appears to outperform the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS and Intel's latest Meteor Lake CPUs, These benchmark results were collected in a sanitized testing environment run by Qualcomm in a benchmarking session, so it's likely that those numbers will differ from real-world usage in actual consumer hardware. In other words, we have a rough idea of how the Snapdragon X Elite performs, but it's hard to say with certainty if it's the x86 killer that everyone wants it to be.
With those laptops just been announced, we expect to get some hands-on benchmarks with them really soon.
How powerful is the Snapdragon X Plus?
Better than an Apple Silicon M3, apparently
Qualcomm is claiming better multithreaded performance than Apple's M3 chipset, though not better performance in singlethreaded workloads. Qualcomm also claims that it doesn't consume much power compared to competitors, but that obviously remains to be seen. The Snapdragon X Plus is basically a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100, though it has 10 Oryon cores instead of 12.
With that, Microsoft also revealed WorksonWoa at Build, though it's a community-run website powered by Linaro. Think ProtonDB on the Steam Deck, where users can report how well it works if it does.
What SoCs are in the Snapdragon X series?
The X Plus and the X Elite are all we know of right now
First and foremost, we know that there is likely to be a baseline Snapdragon X chip, but all that's been officially announced so far are the Snapdragon X Plus and the Snapdragon X Elite. They will go on sale around the same time, and we expect that a baseline Snapdragon X Plus chip will be an even more cut-down version of the same chip.
How will the Arm lawsuit affect the Snapdragon X Elite?
It's full steam ahead for Qualcomm
If you've heard about Qualcomm's Oryon cores, then you also probably know that Qualcomm purchased Nuvia and all of its IP, including the cores that its engineers were designing. As a high-level overview, these cores were originally designed for usage in data centers and servers, but Arm claims that Qualcomm's usage of these cores violates the agreement with Nuvia.
As it stands, Qualcomm has been shipping its Snapdragon X series of chips and there's nothing to suggest at this time that there's any danger of them not shipping to consumers. It's full steam ahead for Qualcomm, and this particular lawsuit will likely take a long time to resolve.
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