Image source: Qualcomm
Snapdragon X series will come in mid-2024 and with this surprise from Qualcomm, this will become challenging battle for Intel, AMD, or even newer competitor, Apple. Qualcomm focuses on different ARM to deliver a processor with good performance but also capable of saving battery life. Snapdragon X series will come with 2 version, Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite. This Snapdragon X will come exclusively for Microsoft Copilot+ PCs.
Microsoft Copilot+ PCs will have exclusive feature: Windows Recall
Snapdragon X will have upper hand from Microsoft with the feature called Windows Recall, which is also exclusive for Windows 11 laptops. With Windows Recall, you can use rumored new “AI Explorer” to find past activities on your laptop. Any activities related on your laptop will be recorded through Windows Recall. Your saved images, videos, documents, and even your conversation on social media will be saved with this feature. However, it sounds concerning for PC users who needs privacy and it might be better if Windows Recall only available locally or offline, not through live-service/online.
The Performance of Snapdragon X series
Snapdragon X series is considered powerful, while Qualcomm said this processor can run at 45 TOPS with the fastest laptop, it still able to run at 24 TOPS with Super Resolution, another exclusive feature from Microsoft that will bring smoother gaming performance but still gives stunning visuals, Intel’s current top performance processors, Intel Core Ultra Gen-14 “Meteor Lake” only have NPUs with 10 TOPS, while AMD’s 8040-series “Hawk Point” only capable up to 16 TOPS.
In any case if anyone still don’t know what is TOPS, it’s called Tera Operation Per Seconds, which is used to measure how good AI can run on PCs, TOPS measurement also used to show Neural Processing Unit (NPU) performance on AI PCs.
The highest level of Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-00-1DE) will have 12 cores with base clock 3.8 GHz and Dual Core boost up to 4.3 GHz, while Snapdragon X Plus (X1P-64-100) will have 10 cores with base clock and 3.4 GHz without any boost.
You can view types of Snapdragon X processors from this official link below:
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/mobile/snapdragon/pcs-and-tablets/snapdragon-x-elite
The Price of Snapdragon X series
Since Snapdragon X processors are built for laptops, the processor will not come as standalone product. So far, the cheapest laptop with Snapdragon X Plus, is Microsoft Surface Laptop with tag price $999. The Snapdragon X Elite version with the same product costs $1,299. So far, Snapdragon X supports on 20+ laptops and might be expanding if Snapdragon X gets massive positive reviews.
Image source: Qualcomm
Closing Words
Snapdragon X can be powerful competitor on processor battlefield. Intel, AMD, and Apple must stay innovative to keep their standards for customers. They always want powerful laptop with good battery life and most importantly, cheap. The exclusive feature, Windows Recall for Snapdragon X might not be a big concern, as this feature still on development version.
