Qualcomm made a splash when it announced Snapdragon X Elite at the Snapdragon Summit in 2023. The new hardware is Qualcomm having another go at powering laptops, with the main competitor for the Snapdragon X hardware being Apple’s M series.
Like Apple’s hardware, the Snapdragon X is ARM-based, looking for an alternative to Intel’s x86 hardware that typically (and currently) powers most Windows laptops and desktops. Apple made the jump to Apple M in 2020, effectively moving first its Macs and then some of its iPads over to ARM-based hardware. But for Windows, this is a story that stretches back to 2012.
Windows on ARM first appeared as Windows RT – which was on the original Microsoft Surface – with the same ambitions that Qualcomm now has with Snapdragon X. The aim of moving away from Intel is to take advantage of greater power efficiencies offered by the ARM architecture and designed specifically for devices that are going to be mobile.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
The Surface Pro X in 2019 tried again using Microsoft SQ1 and SQ2 hardware (supplied by Qualcomm) and the Surface Pro 9 5G repeated the process in 2022 with SQ3, again, Qualcomm hardware.
Now Qualcomm is lining up two tiers of hardware to support such devices: the Snapdragon X Elite that was previously announced and the Snapdragon X Plus, newly announced in 2024.
It’s a move that will be familiar to Qualcomm watchers. The company often announces flagship hardware and then a few months later, announces a slightly lower tier. It seems like a smart move too, the first announcement establishes the branding, while the second removes some components and brings the price down, while still remaining buoyant from the flagship announcement.
That’s what’s happening with Snapdragon X Plus. It features the same Qualcomm Oryon CPU as Snapdragon X Elite, but instead there are 10 cores at 3.4GHz, instead of 12 cores at 3.8GHz. It’s this sort of nip and tuck operation that allows Qualcomm to create a second option for manufacturers which in turn results in more price options for the end customer.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
Qualcomm is keen to keep the pressure on Apple with the new announcement. The Snapdragon X Elite was announced before the Apple M3 (pictured above in the MacBook Air), but if you follow the news, you’ll know that Apple M3 wasn’t a huge step forward over the Apple M2. Qualcomm has updated its benchmarks regardless, saying that it is 28 per cent faster than Apple M3.
Snapdragon X Elite is faster than AMD Ryzen 9 and Intel Core Ultra 7 155H too, with Qualcomm throwing around numbers like 54 per cent faster than Intel or 65 per cent more power efficient. The same rings true for Snapdragon X Plus – it’s more powerful and more efficient than the incumbents.
It’s also designed with 5G connectivity in mind, features a powerful NPU for AI tasks, or just offloading other compute tasks, while also supporting things like high fidelity music, an advanced ISP to drive video calling functions with wide support for external displays too.
The message is that Snapdragon X could change the landscape for Windows devices.
IMAGE CREDIT: QUALCOMM
The question is whether it will. Apple made it work: it announced Apple M, it announced the hardware and ensured that the software was compatible. But it’s not that simple outside of the hardware-software symbiosis that Apple offers. Qualcomm needs to ensure that Microsoft is compatible, it needs to ensure all the developers test and update apps and services, and it needs a wide range of hardware manufacturers to fall into line too.
At the time of writing there are no Snapdragon X series devices. Those are promised in mid-2024, but for this to truly challenge the dominance of Intel and rival Apple M’s offering, the whole industry has to buy into the promise of more power and longer battery life through ARM hardware.
Microsoft arguably has the biggest a big part to play here, with the Surface Pro 10 expected to launch with Snapdragon X series hardware in May 2024. The company has already announced Surface Pro 10 for business, but it seems that the consumer version is going to make the next step in the Windows on ARM story.
