Snapdragon X Elite successfully competes with the best

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chip could be a thorn in the side of both Intel and AMD's top processors. This will be able to compete with even the most powerful solutions.

Photo: Qualcomm

The first information about the performance of Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processor has appeared on X. The results are from the Geekbench 6 benchmark.

The ARM processor's results are very encouraging and comparable to Intel's Core i7-13700HX, Core i9-13900H and AMD's latest mobile flagship Ryzen 9 8945HS. If these numbers match real-world performance, Qualcomm's new ARM-based laptop chip will perform on par with the best hardware Intel and AMD offer today.

The Snapdragon X Elite scored 2,427 points in the Geekbench 6 single-core test and 14,254 points in the benchmark multi-core test. Compared to Intel's slew of top-of-the-line Core i7 and Core i9 Raptor Lake mobile processors, and AMD's top-of-the-line Ryzen 8000 series mobile processors, Qualcomm's new chip outperforms them.

In the single-core test, the Snapdragon chip outperformed the i9-13900H by 3.7 %, the i7-13700HX by 5.9 % and the Ryzen 9 8945HS by 2.2 %. In the multi-core test, the Snapdragon X Elite beat the 13900H by 25.7 %, the 13700HX by 18.4 %, and the 8945HS by 18.3 %.

Assuming these results show Snapdragon performance in the real world, Qualcomm has an incredibly capable chip on its hands. We already knew from previous official reports that the Snapdragon X Elite will be very fast with its 12 Oryon cores, 42 MB of cache and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.3 GHz. These Geekbench 6 results serve as further confirmation that Qualcomm has hit its performance goals with the Snapdragon X Elite.

Qualcomm aims for “best-in-class multithreading performance”. Unlike its previous laptop chips, Qualcomm aims to compete with the best laptop processors in the industry. Qualcomm has already revealed that its new 60 % chip outperforms the i7-13800H and is twice as fast as Intel's i7-1355U and i7-1360P, while using only a third of the power.

Qualcomm is also targeting Apple, its main competitor, when it comes to ARM-based laptop processors. Qualcomm states that the Snapdragon X Elite provides 50 % better multithreading performance than the Apple M2.

We still have to take these results with a grain of salt for now, as Geekbench 6 isn't always the best indicator of real-world performance. Still, these results show that Qualcomm can certainly compete with the top x86 chipmakers in the PC space, just like Apple. Apple has shown that ARM processors can be fast and efficient, and Qualcomm is now providing these capabilities in the mainstream Windows 11 environment.