The Snapdragon X Elite will eventually be found in the more premium notebooks that will be stamped with a significantly larger price tag, but Qualcomm has something that will power the less expensive bracket, and it is called the Snapdragon X Plus. Naturally, there will be several differences between the two chipsets, but thankfully, one area where Qualcomm has maintained consistency is that both feature custom Oryon CPU cores, guaranteeing an uplift in single-core and multi-core performance. Fortunately, more features are crammed into the silicon, which we will discuss here.
Snapdragon X Plus can be decked out with a 10-core CPU configuration, features 42MB of cache, an NPU with 45TOPS, and more
Starting with the specifications rundown, the Snapdragon X Plus has a 10-core CPU configuration divided into six performance and four efficiency cores. Unfortunately, Qualcomm has not implemented any boost clock technology, but each core can run up to 3.40GHz, provided the temperatures are controlled within the limit. The silicon also features 42MB of cache and is mass produced on TSMC’s 4nm architecture. On the GPU side of things, Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon X Plus features an Adreno processor with up to 3.8TFLOPS and a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with 45 tera-operations per second or TOPS.
The maximum supported memory is 64GB, running at LPDDR5X speeds of 8,448MT/s. Notebooks featuring the Snapdragon X Plus will also receive a massive boost in image quality when using the webcam because this SoC sports the Qualcomm Spectra ISP and can handle a single 64MP camera or a dual-sensor configuration of 36MP each. Best of all, the chipset can handle 4K HDR video capture from a single unit. One area where even the less expensive Windows machines will one-up Apple’s portable Macs is 5G connectivity.
The Snapdragon X Plus is also integrated with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X65 5G modem. Since the baseband chip supports a multitude of bands, you can easily connect to most of the world’s networks without facing compatibility problems. Other supported wireless standards include Qualcomm FastConnect 7800, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. Looking at the various performance slides, it is evident that the Snapdragon X Plus can outpace Apple’s M3 by around 10 percent, but it is also considerably more power efficient than the rest of the competition.
For instance, while operating at peak performance, the chipset uses approximately 54 percent less power than the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS. Interestingly, Qualcomm did not share gaming benchmarks in its performance slides, though early testing revealed that the Snapdragon X Elite can obtain 30FPS in Baldur’s Gate 3 at 1080p, with the visual settings set to low. The new silicon can also maintain 40FPS in Remedy’s Control at low settings but in non-combat areas. Since the Snapdragon X Plus likely has a weaker GPU, it may not even break the 30FPS mark in several games at the lowest setting, which is why Qualcomm probably left those numbers out.
The first wave of Snapdragon X Plus-powered Windows notebooks is expected to launch in the second half of 2024. Unfortunately, Qualcomm has not shared pricing details yet, but we will provide timely updates soon.
