The Snapdragon X Elite has begun appearing in various notebooks, receiving mixed reviews. While some aspects of these ARM-based Windows machines are praised, others fall short. A significant complaint is the high price, leading potential buyers to consider Apple Silicon MacBooks. To address this, Qualcomm plans to launch a range of notebooks powered by the Snapdragon X Plus next month at the IFA trade show, starting at a more affordable $800.
Though specific models have not been detailed, it is unlikely that the Snapdragon X Elite will be included due to its high cost. The Snapdragon X Plus, introduced recently, boasts a 10-core CPU with a clock speed of 3.40GHz. According to Evan Blass, Qualcomm will announce an 8-core version of the same chipset at IFA, aimed at notebooks in the $800 price range. CEO Christiano Amon has previously mentioned an aggressive pricing strategy of $700 to boost adoption of ARM-based Windows notebooks across various markets.
The 8-core Snapdragon X Plus is expected to have four performance cores and four efficiency cores. While this configuration may result in lower multi-core performance compared to the 10-core variant, it could also lead to better battery life. Manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm process like Qualcomm’s other chipsets, the Snapdragon X Plus features an Adreno GPU rated at 1.7TFLOPS (as opposed to 3.8TFLOPS) and 30MB of total cache compared to the 42MB on its higher-spec counterpart.
Naturally, there will be noticeable differences between the 10-core and 8-core versions of the Snapdragon X Plus. Observing any real-world impact of these lowered specifications on Windows laptops will be interesting. It would be particularly impressive if the $800 models include 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage, giving Qualcomm a solid chance to make a significant market impact. However, it remains to be seen whether the company’s partners will follow through on this plan.
