When talking about PC hardware and performance, a lot of enthusiasts will often default to the big names in the field like Intel, AMD, you name it. With that being said though, it looks like Qualcomm is trying its best to catch up to established industry players with the launch of its new Snapdragon X Elite. The company says that the Snapdragon X Elite is designed to give a significant boost for users who are after modern computing solutions, rivalling performance found in mainstream brands.
Kedar Kondap, Qualcomm’s Senior Vice President & General Manager of Compute & Gaming says:
“Snapdragon X Elite represents a dramatic leap in innovation for computing as we deliver ournew, custom Qualcomm Oryon CPU for super-charged performance that will delight consumers with incredible power efficiency and take their creativity and productivity to the next level… Powerful on-device AI experiences will enable seamless multitasking and new intuitive user experiences, empowering consumers and businesses alike to create and accomplish more.”
“Oryon” and Performance
Qualcomm says that it has designed the new Snapdragon X Elite with the integrated Qualcomm Oryon CPU, which the company claims can deliver up to twice the speed of CPU performance compared to its contemporiaries such as Apple’s M2 and Intel’s i9 series processors, all the while using one-third of the power. This is a rather bold claim to be honest, given how impressive Apple’s and Intel’s high-end chips are, although it’s admittedly great to see more competition and innovation happening in the race for better computing performance.
In terms of specs, Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU features a 64-bit architecture with 12 cores, and up to 3.8 GHz speeds, alongside Single and Dual-Core Boost (up to 4.3 GHz). This works alongside a Qualcomm Adreno GPU that can reach up to 4.6 teraflops, as well as DX12 API support.
AI-Led Computing
In addition to advancements in performance, it looks like Qualcomm is banking a lot on the processor’s AI capabilities – the Snapdragon X Elite is built to support AI-integrated features, and is capable of running generative AI models with over 13 billion parameters, which is done all on-device. This performance in AI is supposedly up to 4.5 times faster compared to processors from rival brands.
This support for AI computing is made possible thanks to Qualcomm’s AI Engine, that features an integrated Qualcomm Hexagon NPU which should come in handy for creative content production, video conferencing, productivity, and even security. Qualcomm states that the processor is able to run generative AI LLM (large language models) with considerably fast speeds.
Also inside the Snapdragon X Elite is an updated Micro NPU built into the Qualcomm Sensing Hub, which serves as a way to enhance a device’s security, login for users, and other privacy features which includes protection for sensitive data.
Other Details
As for other specifics, the Snapdragon X Elite comes with up to 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM with a transfer rate of 8533 MT/s, UFS 4.0 storage support, Qualcomm’s Adreno DPU for display support which works with on-device displays of up to eDP v1.4b (up to UHD120 HDR10), and external display resolutions up to DP v1.4 (3 displays), UHD60 HDR10 (2 displays, 5K60).
In terms of availability, Qualcomm says that consumers can expect to see the Snapdragon X Elite in products starting mid-2024.
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