Elite Snapdragon X2 of Qualcomm: the good, the bad and the ugly

New Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 elite chips have prompted a ton of conversations in recent days. Can they do it? What do you like about them? And so on.

Although I cannot say if the Snapdragon X2 elite and Elite Extreme will eventually succeed, I can offer you an interior overview of what people are talking about – at least what I heard and heard – at the Summit Snapdragon of Qualcomm in Hawaii. If you want to catch up with all the news, the Elite Snapdragon X2 and X2 offer more hearts up to speeds up to 5 GHz, includes an optional integrated memory and preserves the performance of the first generation battery.

The good: tempting performance

If you want a portable productivity computer for general use, the first generation Snapdragon X Elite was almost perfect. The new Elite Extreme X2 seems to be even better, with benchmarks (controlled) which simply breathe the Intel shavings from Intel (Lunar Lake) and Ryzen AI 300 of AMD, from the GPU processor to the NPU in Ai-Ai. Qualcomm really does almost everything that consumers ask for in this space.

The CPU markers seem particularly juicy. Compared to rival fleas in today’s laptops, the Snapdragon X2 elite smoke All the arrivals of the Cinebench reference loved by criticism, in tests to one and thoroughly.

And the NPU of Snapdragon X2 Elite offers 80 peaks, leaving competition in the dust. However, consumers are asking for more summits of an NPU is a question mark.

Doubled roughly the tops of the first version is proud on paper, and certainly larger figures are better. But there are a lot about the question of whether consumption applications will be able to take advantage of its prowess, including this concept of IA agent that everyone is talking about. Nobody is always Of course, if it will happen.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

It depends on how you see it: is local AI still a sale argument? Anyway, the Snapdragon X2 elite seems to be loaded with equipment capable of exploding most of the tasks you are launching, or not.

The BAD: Supplier support for lukewarm PC, games and lack of battery conference

I couldn’t help but notice that only Asus and HP approved the Snapdragon X2 architecture, and via the video to start – not in person at the Snapdragon Summit. The strange laptop Horizon Pro “Ai Ai” (which will not use the X2, but the X1) was there, but not the customers established of Qualcomm. And where was Qualcomm longtime backhoe, Lenovo?

Of course, new partners could always be announced. But I had questions.

Another question: 3D graphics performance. Yes, supposedly the Snapdragon X2 elite on double the performance of the first generation X Elite platform, which played (some) games at around 30 frames per second at 1080p with low performance. The doubling is, what, 60 IPS with the same resolution and the same image quality? What about all the games that simply refuse to work well on the first generation snapdragon fleas?

At the end the most passionate about things, “nothing prevents” the Snapdragon X2 from connecting to a discreet GPU like GeForce RTX of Nvidia, according to the main vice-president of Qualcomm, Kedar Kondap … but it does not seem that it is, or the will. It’s difficult: the game is often considered a high -level design victory, and proof that a chip like the X2 elite should be considered a sexy and high margin processor. But that would immediately cut into a key advantage Snapdragon: a long service life of the battery.

Qualcomm

And it was weird too: Qualcomm has really minimized Batten life from a Snapdragon X2 laptop, referring to “several days” on a few times. I don’t know if it was because the competitive landscape had erased this advantage, or what. But it was simply not a big goal.

Again, Qualcomm has a cross to endure in its inheritance of the arm and how it affects the compatibility of applications. This really affects only strange and dusty old public services, the occasional printer and the games. But games are the only area where it can make breakthroughs, although Snapdragon can simply not offer the “it simply works” insurance of its X86 competitors anytime.

The ugly: a handbag

Naturally, any new launch offers criticism possibilities.

Not only did people challenged the name of Microsoff -Esque’s name – The X2 Elite Extreme, really?! – Critics have stressed the very valid point that it was the first major architecture launch of Qualcomm in years. The criticisms obtained practical tests from the X1 Elite two years ago, in October 2023, before the launch of the Snapdragon alongside Copilot + PCS in May 2024. Qualcomm followed it with the cut-down x1 plus and x in the interval.

As a participant pointed out, “you cannot play on this calendar and expect to win against Intel and AMD”, which launches a new mobile chip or update architecture on an annual rate.

Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry

The X1 Elite of Qualcomm also pointed out to Intel and AMD that these rivals should have their own fleas in order. But tie Snapdragon X to Copilot + and the besieged recall of Microsoft did not do much for Qualcomm, if anything. Qualcomm was Windows’s standard bearer on Arm, and its reputation concerns (now largely undesirable) concerning the compatibility of applications. Then, Lanar d’Ill Lake has arrived and offered a very competitive – and perhaps even better – chip without any baggage.

A manufacturer of laptops told me that they had joined the original X1 elite as a negotiation chip with Intel. People had a lot of questions about what it meant for the next “Panther Lake” chip from Intel, which should be unveiled this fall.

In my opinion, one of the best things that Qualcomm has ever done was simply to offer a third convincing option to Intel and AMD. This means that we have all benefited from a competitive market for PC processors which only continues to warm up.

Disclosure: Qualcomm has held its press points in Hawaii and would not pre-reproduce in other places or on video meetings. They paid for my bedroom, boarding and travel costs, but did not ask for editorial control over this story or other PCworld content.