Is the second time the charm? Maybe, but Qualcomm’s dealing more blows to Intel while its down.
Qualcomm’s nascent push into PCs now has the sequel chip that will set the tone for what to expect from Windows-based machines going into 2026. This year, Qualcomm doesn’t have just one flagship CPU; it has two. Announced at its Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii (full disclosure: travel and lodging were paid by Qualcomm, and Gizmodo did not guarantee any coverage as a condition of accepting the trip), the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (a name that, if you say it, immediately cues a radical guitar rip) make performance promises that stress its graphics capabilities more than ever. Whether or not it will be actually good for graphics tasks, including gaming, will depend on how Qualcomm can counter the app compatibility conundrum.
Qualcomm’s X2 series stands as the sequel to last year’s Snapdragon X processors. While you can find plenty of PCs with a Snapdragon X Elite, Snapdragon X Plus, and the more recent Snapdragon X, the X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme are both “flagship level,” even if Qualcomm is mostly focusing on the performance of the more powerful processor and its more radical branding.More power for Windows on ARM
The X2 Elite Extreme features 18 of Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU cores on a 3nm process with a 53MB cache. Of the 18 cores, 12 are “prime cores” running at 4.
