Qualcomm details its Snapdragon X Elite: all SKUs have NPU with 45 TOPS for AI workloads

Qualcomm has been trying for many, many years now to get its Windows on Arm chips up to scratch -- with very, very mixed results -- and now we're being introduced to the new Snapdragon X Elite, which Qualcomm calls the "world's fastest NPU for laptops".

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The new Snapdragon X Elite laptop chip has the Qualcomm AI Engine with integrated Qualcomm Hexagon NPU (Neural Processing Unit) with 45 TOPS of AI workload performance. In comparison, Intel's current-gen Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" CPUs top out with 10 TOPS (pun not intended, but it works so well here), while AMD's new Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" APUs have 16 TOPS of AI performance.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite chip has 75 TOPS of AI performance across the CPU + GPU + NPU and micro NPU, while it's made on the 4nm process by TSMC. On the CPU side of things, we've got the Arm-baed Oryon CPU with 12 cores on the Snapdragon X Elite, or 10 cores on the Snapdragon X Plus.

Inside, we've got the Qualcomm Adreno GPU, Hexagon NPU, and Sensing Hub. There's support for up to 64GB of LPDDR5 memory that has up to 136GB/sec of memory bandwidth. Qualcomm includes the latest Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 6 support, as well as the new Snapdragon X65 5G modem.

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Qualcomm explains its AI abilities on Snapdragon X Elite: "Snapdragon X Elite features the industry-leading Qualcomm® AI Engine with an integrated Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU, delivering transformative experiences for creativity, video conferencing, security, and productivity assistants. Snapdragon X Elite is capable of running generative AI LLM models over 13B parameters on-device with blazing-fast speeds. It also includes the updated dual Micro NPU inside the ultra-low power Qualcomm® Sensing Hub for enhanced security, login experience and privacy, including the ability to wake the device when in sleep mode. Sensitive data can stay on your laptop for increased security with intelligence at the edge. The Qualcomm AI Engine supports Windows Studio Effects and many other AI-accelerated applications and experiences, to make possibilities endless".

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite has 12 cores that will boost up to 3.8GHz or up to 4.3GHz in single-core or dual-core boost modes. The Snapdragon X Plus on the other hand, has its 10 cores of CPU running at up to 3.4GHz across all cores.

On the GPU side of things, Qualcomm promises that its new Adreno GPU has up to 4.6 TFLOPs of performance, with the Snapdragon X Elite featuring support for up to 4K 120Hz, and even triple 4K external monitors.