Key Takeaways:
- Qualcomm introduced the 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip, aimed at bringing AI-driven computing to more affordable Windows laptops.
- Qualcomm’s latest chip outperforms competitors by offering better performance in both single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
- The new -core Snapdragon X Plus is expected to appear in Windows devices starting at just $799.
Qualcomm has announced today its first 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip at IFA in Berlin. This new Snapdragon X SoC variant will power a more affordable range of Copilot+ PCs from all major hardware manufacturers.
In June, Qualcomm launched its first wave of Snapdragon X processors called the 10-Core Snapdragon X Plus and 12-Core Snapdragon X Elite. These chips are designed for premium Windows PCs that start at $999. Now, Qualcomm plans to bring Snapdragon to a more affordable range of devices. The new 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip will power new Copilot+ PCs from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung, with these laptops expected to start at prices as low as $800.
“Copilot+ PCs, powered exclusively today by Snapdragon X Series platforms, launched the new generation in personal computing, made possible by our groundbreaking NPU. We are now bringing these transformative AI experiences, along with best-in-class performance and unprecedented battery life, to more users worldwide with Snapdragon X Plus 8-core,” said Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer, Qualcomm Incorporated. “We’re proud to be working with our global OEM partners to restore performance leadership to the Windows ecosystem.”
Qualcomm’s 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip outperforms competitors in benchmarks
Qualcomm has reduced the cache size of this new 8-core chip (X1P-42-100) to just 30MB, compared to the 42MB that is available in all the Snapdragon X chips available in the market. This new chip is available for customers in two variants. The first one comes with a 1.7 TFLOPS GPU, and a slightly powerful SKU with 2.1 TFLOPS GPU is coming in 2025. Qualcomm claims that this new lower-end ship should offer significantly better performance than the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U and AMD Ryzen 8460U in both single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
Additionally, Qualcomm’s new 8-core Snapdragon Plus chip maintains a neural processing unit (NPU) performance of 45 TOPS, which enables support for Copilot+ features like Windows Recall, Live Captions, and Image Generation in Photos. It uses the same LPDDR5x memory with an 8,448 mega transfer rate, and supports Wi-Fi 7, 5G, Bluetooth 5.4, and AV1 encoding and decoding for up to 4K HDR video streaming.
Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Plus chips will power the new Asus Zenbook S 15 and Dell Inspiron 14, both starting at just $899. Additionally, Asus has introduced a new Qualcomm-based creator laptop priced at $1,099, which features a 3K OLED touchscreen, a 70-watt hour battery, stylus support, and a detachable keyboard.