‘Snapdragon X Plus’ leaks as Qualcomm’s new Windows chip looks promising

Ben Schoon | Apr 5 2024 - 1:36 pm PT

Last year Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X Elite, an ARM-based CPU for Windows that made big promises. While we’ve yet to see any laptops ship with the chip, things are looking up, and now the “Snapdragon X Plus” looks to be a potentially more affordable version of the chip.

Snapdragon X Elite is essentially for Windows laptops what Apple’s M1 (and onward) chips have been for the MacBook. The ARM-powered nature of the chip provides much better power efficiency while still delivering lots of power.

And, from the looks of it, Qualcomm’s chip will be no slouch. Thurott this week published early impressions of Elite and things are looking good so far, calling it “the real deal” and claiming it even beats Apple’s latest M3 chips, often “by a wide margin.”

It’s rather exciting, especially given the ever-building integration between Windows and Android.

Now, though, it seems there’s another chip in the mix. WinFuture reports that Qualcomm is also preparing “Snapdragon X Plus” to debut in machines sometime fairly soon. This chip would be a cut-down version of the Elite, possibly coming with ten cores instead the Elite’s 12-core setup. Specifics are not available, but the chip would apparently come with the model number “X1P” versus the Elite’s “X1E” and would still support the X65 modem.

Laptops powered by Snapdragon X Elite are expected to arrive in the next few months.