The first Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus laptops have arrived and we are testing them in our labs. Qualcomm’s new Arm-based processors promise to deliver performance and efficiency comparable to Apple’s M-series chips. Since the best MacBooks currently set the benchmark for power and endurance, Snapdragon X chips could make the best Windows laptops as attractive as Apple’s laptops.
Tom’s Guide has tested or is testing several Snapdragon Apple M processors. They’re also keeping pace with laptops powered by Intel’s AI-focused Meteor Lake chips. Battery life results are still pending, although we have at least one promising result to discuss.
So how does the Snapdragon X Elite compare to the competition? You can see our performance benchmark results below. We’ll update this article with more battery life results as soon as we have them.
General performance
The Snapdragon X Elite is indeed a powerful laptop processor. So far, we’ve tested units containing the Snapdragon X Elite X1E80100. This processor features 12 cores, a base clock of 3.4 GHz and 45 TOPS. It’s not the most high-end X Elite chip, but it’s not the lowest-end chip either, as you can see from Qualcomm website. The results are rather impressive.
On Geekbench 6, which tests overall processor performance, the Snapdragon X Elite performed well in both single-core and multi-core benchmark tests. Qualcomm previously claimed its silicon could crush the Apple M3 chip. While that’s not exactly the case, the Snapdragon X Elite laptops are certainly on par (or better) than Apple silicon. The chip also performs well compared to the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which is the mid-range Meteor Lake processor.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Geekbench 6 (single-core) | Geekbench 6 (multi-core) | Handbrake (min: dry) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Surface Pro 11 (X Elite) | 2,813 | 14,432 | 5:24 |
| HP OmniBook X (X Elite) | 2,347 | 12,861 | 6:20 a.m. |
| HP EliteBook Ultra (X Elite) | 2,371 | 12,717 | 6:24 |
| Asus Vivobook S 15 (X Elite)* | 2,418 | 14,352 | 6:50 a.m. |
| MacBook Air 13 inch M3 | 3,082 | 12,087 | 7:40 a.m. |
| MacBook Air 15 inch M3 | 3,102 | 12,052 | 6:34 |
| MacBook Pro 14 inch M3 | 3,037 | 11,968 | 5:38 |
| Dell XPS 14 (Meteor Lake) | 2,326 | 12,701 | 5:49 p.m. |
| HP Omen Transcend 14 (Meteor Lake) | 2,362 | 13,248 | 4:57 |
| Acer Swift Go 14 (Meteor Lake) | 2,364 | 12,612 | 5:16 |
While the 13-inch MacBook Air, 15-inch MacBook Air, and 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by an M3 engine offer better single-core performance than their rivals, laptops powered by X Elite and Ultra 7 processors have better multi-core performance, in especially Microsoft. Surface Pro 11. You probably won’t notice a major difference in real-world use, but it’s interesting to see M3 lagging behind in multi-core.
The Snapdragon X Elite laptops also performed well in our Handbrake video editing test, which involves transcoding a 4K video clip to 1080p. The Surface Pro 11 completed the task a minute faster than the HP laptop. All X Elite laptops finished faster than the Apple M3 MacBooks, although the Meteor Lake machines were faster overall.
Note that the Asus Vivobook S 15 numbers come directly from Editor-in-Chief Jason England’s testing, not numbers from our testing lab. We’ll update these numbers once we get our hands on Asus’ laptop, which should be soon.
Gaming Performance
Don’t expect to play top PC games with decent frame rates on Snapdragon X Elite laptops. Some titles like Fortnite cannot run on these machines because they were not designed for Arm-based computers. You can use the Prism emulation tool to run x86 games on Arm, but the fact remains that playing games natively on these machines could be problematic.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Civilization VI Frame Rate Rest Results (@1080p) |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Surface Pro 11 (X Elite) | 20 frames per second |
| HP OmniBook X (X Elite) | 20 frames per second |
| MacBook Air 13 inch M3 | 41 fps (@1200p) |
| MacBook Pro 14 inch M3 | 51fps (@1200p) |
| Dell XPS 14 (Meteor Lake) | 47 frames per second |
| Acer Swift Go 14 (Meteor Lake) | 36 frames per second |
As you can see above, Civilization VI, which is not a graphically demanding game, only achieved 20 frames per second on the Snapdragon X Elite laptops we tested. Although it can’t reach 60fps on M3 or Meteor Lake laptops, the game runs at acceptable frame rates.
But it’s just a game. We’ll compare other titles and continue our testing on Snapdragon X Elite laptops.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Microsoft Surface Pro 11 | Acer Swift Go 14 |
|---|---|---|
| 3DMark Time Spy | 1887 | 3827 |
| 3DMark Fire Strike | 5743 | 8046 |
| 3DMark Night Raid | 24853 | 27154 |
Snapdragon X Elite also didn’t perform well compared to Intel Core Ultra in the 3DMark graphics test.
Ultimately, you’re better off using one of the best gaming laptops if you want to play demanding games.
Battery life (preliminary)
We always run battery tests on our Snapdragon X Elite laptops. Indeed, at the time of writing this article, two of these machines had been running for over 12 hours. And given the first test result for one of these machines, it looks like Snapdragon X could finally help Windows laptops last almost as long (or even longer) than MacBooks.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Time (hours: minutes) |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Surface Pro 11* | 12:10 p.m. (first race) |
| 13-inch MacBook Air (M3) | 3:10 p.m. |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 5:16 p.m. |
| Acer Swift Go 14 | 8:25 a.m. |
In our battery test, which involves continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi with the screen set to 150 nits of brightness, the Microsoft Surface Pro 11 lasted 12 hours and 10 minutes. We typically run three battery tests and average the wait times, but the fact that we’re seeing just over 12 hours on a Windows machine is a good sign.
While 12 hours is impressive, it’s still not close to the MacBooks in the table above. But to be honest, few laptops can match Apple’s in terms of battery life.
Compatibility issues
As we reported, CoPilot+ PCs will not run various apps and games at launch. Samsung has released the apps and games that won’t work on its Galaxy Book 4 Edge. Since this laptop runs on a Snapdragon
THE compatibility notice (first reported by The Wall Street Journal), indicates that many security programs, various Adobe software, and Google Drive will not currently work on Samsung’s new Copilot+ laptop. Games like League of Legends and Microsoft Halo Infinite will also not work on the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge AI and probably all CoPilot+ PCs.
Compatibility issues could be resolved as more developers create apps and games for the Arm architecture. However, this might take a while or even happen for some apps.
Outlook
Although Snapdragon While they’re not great for gaming (yet), Snapdragon X Elite laptops offer excellent performance and (potentially) strong battery life.
If more Snapdragon X Elite (and
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