Qualcomm is already back with a new Snapdragon X CPU, and the chip massively undercuts the competition from Apple.
Just a day after Intel revealed its Lunar Lake laptop CPUs at IFA 2024, Qualcomm is firing back with a new Snapdragon X Plus chip. The aptly named Snapdragon X Plus 8-core trims down the core count that we’ve seen on a wave of Snapdragon X Elite laptops to undercut the competition from Apple. Qualcomm says that machines sporting the new CPU, which could show up on the list of the best laptops, will be available to purchase starting today.
The Snapdragon X Plus isn’t new, but this is a new variant of the chip. The major difference is right in the name. This CPU comes with eight cores instead of 10, but Qualcomm is still using a 4nm process, and it says the chip can reach up to 3.4GHz with single-core boosts up to 4GHz. Critically, the chip still sports a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), allowing it to show up in Copilot+ laptops with 45 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) of power.
