Snapdragon X Plus — 8-core ARM processors for laptops. What are these chips?
Characteristics and features of the new product
The processors are quite productive, they can be called a solid mid-range processor not only among budget ARM chips. The main difference is eight computing cores instead of ten, as was the case with the X Plus or 12 with the X Elite.
Here are the specifications of Snapdragon X Plus:
Kernels: 8 cores (Oryon CPU).
Clock speed:
X1P-42-100: up to 3.4 GHz in single-core mode and 3.2 GHz in multi-core mode;
X1P-46-100: Up to 4.0 GHz single-core and 3.4 GHz multi-core.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU):
Cache: 30 MB. Less than the 10-core model, which has 42 MB.
Artificial Intelligence (NPU): Supports 45 TOPS (trillion operations per second) for AI tasks.
Memory: LPDDR5X support.
Safety: Built-in module with Microsoft Pluton support and full memory encryption.
This series is designed for mid-range notebooks. It provides high performance with lower power consumption.
Workhorse
The new chip is about half as powerful as the more advanced models in the lineup in terms of the graphics subsystem. So, Snapdragon X Plus laptops with 8 cores cannot be used as powerful gaming machines. But as workhorses capable of performing a variety of tasks – from working with text to coding – such laptops can be used. Especially since the performance of the main computing unit in Snapdragon X Plus is only 20% lower than the most advanced Elite processor.
The new product allows displaying images on three external monitors simultaneously. The processor is also suitable for AI developers, since the new chips have a neuromodule with a performance of 45 TOPS.
In addition to the operating speed, the advantage of the new chips is energy efficiency. As I wrote above, they consume significantly less energy compared to competitors. Qualcomm claimsthat the X1P-46-100 consumes 116% less power than AMD Ryzen 5 processors in Geekbench 6.2 and 179% less than Intel Core Ultra 7 in multitasking, so Snapdragon X Plus-based laptops can last longer without recharging.
Qualcomm has integrated the Secure Processing Unit with Microsoft Pluton support into Snapdragon X Plus to provide hardware-based data protection. This enhances the security of Snapdragon X Plus-based devices, which is especially important for enterprise users.
Okay, so what about budget laptops?
According to Qualcomm experts, laptops based on the new processors will cost approximately $700–900, depending on the configuration. The main competitor of the new models will not be laptops based on Intel chips, but the Apple MacBook Air.
This is currently the most affordable model of laptops from the Cupertino company. But even this model, if you take the model with 8 GB of unified memory and a 256-gigabyte SSD, will cost the buyer approximately $ 1,099 US or more, depending on the configuration.
By purchasing a Snapdragon X Plus-powered laptop, an electronics store customer will save between $200 and $500 compared to the latest Apple MacBook Air models.
If we talk about laptops based on Intel chips, then the new models with Snapdragon X Plus win in terms of energy consumption. And if Intel chips are still manufactured using a 10-nm process technology, then in the case of Snapdragon X Plus the situation is different: it already uses 4-nm technology.
The mass release of laptops with new processors is planned in 2-4 weeks. The names of new products based on Snapdragon X Plus are already known:
Everything is fine with ARM chips in laptops. The only problem is application support. More and more developers are now adding support for the ARM platform, but there are still some compatibility issues. There are tools from Microsoft that allow you to run software on ARM chips without their support. But they do not always work smoothly: slow startup or software crashes are possible. Although the company is trying to gradually improve these tools.
Apple will likely have serious competitors in the near future, and several models from different companies at once. Hopefully, this will lead to healthy competition and, perhaps, a gradual reduction in the cost of high-performance laptops.
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