Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon X Plus and Full X Elite Portfolio

Qualcomm officially unveiled today the Snapdragon X Plus, a new addition to the company’s X Series family of ARM-based chips designed for next-gen AI PCs. The company also shared more details today about its top-of-the-line Snapdragon X Elite chip, which will have 3 different SKUs compared to just one for the Snapdragon X Plus.

The new Snapdragon X Plus actually leaked earlier this week via a Geekbench listing for Microsoft’s upcoming Surface Pro 10 for consumers. We already knew that this chip had 10 CPU cores compared to 12 on the Snapdragon X Elite, but we now have all the details about Qualcomm’s latest chip for next-gen Windows on ARM PCs.

It’s now confirmed that the Snapdragon X Plus has 10 “Oryon” CPU cores running at up to 3.4Ghz, which according to Qualcomm deliver 10% faster multi-threaded performance compared to Apple’s M3 chip (the X Elite is said to be 28% faster than the M3, however). Compared to a PC with a 16-core Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon X Plus delivers up to 37% faster CPU performance while consuming up to 54% less power.

The other core elements of the new Snapdragon X Plus include an Adreno GPU delivering up to 3.8 teraflops of computing power, and the “Hexagon” neural processing unit (NPU), which Qualcomm claims to be the world’s fastest NPU for laptops delivering 45 TOPS (Tera Operations per Second) of AI performance. This is the same NPU found on the Snapdragon X Elite, and it’s coupled with an integrated micro NPU for the Qualcomm Sensing Hub powering an always-sensing image signal processor.

Just like the Snapdragon X Elite, the Snapdragon X Plus supports 5G, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity. Both chips also support up to 64GB of LPDDR5x memory with 135 GB/s bandwidth. Moreover, the two chips can power an on-device 4K 120Hz HDR display and up to three external 4K displays running at 60Hz.

So, what are the main differences between the Snapdragon X Plus and the Snapdragon X Elite? Well, the latter has a 12-core CPU running at a higher maximum multithread frequency, and there’s also a Dual Core Boost feature on select SKUs. the Adreno GPU on the X1E-84-100 SKU also delivers 4.6 teraflops of computing power instead of 3.8 TFLOPs.

“Snapdragon X Series platforms deliver leading experiences and are positioned to revolutionize the PC industry,” said Kedar Kondap, senior vice president and general manager of compute and gaming, Qualcomm Technologies. “By delivering leading CPU performance, AI capabilities, and power efficiency, we are once again pushing the boundaries of what is possible in mobile computing.”

Qualcomm said today that the first AI PCs powered by its new Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite chips will start shipping in mid-2024. Microsoft is expected to be first in line with the consumer versions of its Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6, which are expected to be announced during a Surface an AI event in May.