Qualcomm's other Snapdragon X SoC is leaked, indicating how Plus CPU should compare to Elite

Qualcomm is rumored to be revealing its Snapdragon X Plus chip at an event tomorrow, and it seems like this will indeed be happening, as the details of the SoC have just been leaked.

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Purported spec details of the incoming Snapdragon SoCs (Image Credit: VideoCardz)

VideoCardz has got hold of some apparent press slides detailing the three variants of the Snapdragon X Elite, as well as the Snapdragon X Plus silicon which will run alongside it (there'll just be one version of that - to begin with, anyway).

The rumor mill was correct in its assertion that the Snapdragon X Plus would be a 10-core SoC, cut down a pair of cores compared to the 12-core Elite CPU. At least assuming this leak is correct anyway - we must treat any pre-release spillage with some caution until the info is confirmed by Qualcomm, which will no doubt happen at the mentioned event tomorrow.

According to VideoCardz, the Snapdragon X Plus will top out at a boost speed of 3.4GHz for multi-threaded workloads, which actually keeps pace with the Elite chips, save for the flagship variant. That Snapdragon X Elite flagship CPU (model X1E-84) will up the ante to a boost of 3.8GHz, and will be capable of boosting 2-cores further to 4.2GHz when workloads call for it.

The middle Snapdragon X Elite chip will have a dual-core boost to 4GHz, but the lowest end variant won't have this ability, and will stick to just 3.4GHz multi-threaded, the same as the Plus version.

As you might expect, all of these Snapdragon X CPUs have an NPU rated for 45 TOPS - because that's the necessary number to hit for a laptop to be classed as one of Microsoft's AI PCs. (Featuring a decent amount of AI acceleration - far more than current chips such as Intel Meteor Lake, which are around the 10 TOPS or just over area).

Adreno GPU

The other noteworthy advantage for the flagship Snapdragon X Elite is that it'll have a more powerful integrated GPU - running at 4.6 TFLOPs in fact, compared to 3.8 TFLOPs on the other Elite chips and the Plus CPU.

Specs are one thing, benchmarks another, and fortunately, VideoCardz also shared some leaked scores from the likes of Geekbench - add seasoning with all this as already noted (and remember these are, theoretically, Qualcomm's own internal benchmarks).

The Snapdragon X Elite (presumably the flagship chip) hits around 2,900 in Geekbench single-thread, and up to 15,400 in multi-threaded, compared to 2,400 and 13,000 respectively for the Snapdragon X Plus. So, the Elite is around 18-20% faster, and it opens up a bigger lead in some benchmarks, such as Cinebench.

Overall, though, the Snapdragon X Plus looks pretty competitive, and should help to keep the price of these incoming AI PCs down somewhat. Pricing, of course, is going to be a key issue as ever - but the incoming Snapdragon laptops are already threatening to make a major impact.

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