Snapdragon X Elite outperformed Intel's Core Ultra by a huge margin

Qualcomm shows that its upcoming Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chip has outperformed Intel’s most capable “Meteor Lake” series chips by a huge margin. Qualcomm’s new platform that is targeting Apple‘s M series chips, is scheduled for a “mid-2024” release. While we are still away from the release, performance numbers of Qualcomm’s new solution for power-efficient Windows computing are building up anticipation.

Previously in October, Qualcomm compared Snapdragon X Elite with Intel’s 13th generation Raptor Lake series chips. It showed Snapdragon X Elite matching the performance of Intel’s powerful i913980HX albeit consuming 70% less power. However, 2024 has offered us a number of really efficient Windows laptops running on Intel’s latest Meteor Lake series Core Ultra chips. So, it’s worth knowing how Qualcomm’s upcoming ARM-based SoC compares to Intel’s latest and best offerings.

Qualcomm compared Snapdragon X Elite with Intel’s Core Ultra 7 155H and Core Ultra 9 185H

The latest revelation from Qualcomm and PCWorld aims to answer just that. Qualcomm has shared the same sort of comparison once again, with two of the latest 14th generation Meteor Lake series Core Ultra chips – the Core Ultra 7 155H and Core Ultra 9 185H. Both of the chips include similar core architecture with a total of 16 cores and a peak turbo frequency of 4.8 and 5.1GHz respectively.

On the other side, the Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite boasts 12 of Qualcomm’s custom-made Oryon CPU cores, thanks to the company’s acquisition of Nuvia. Each of them runs at the same 3.8 GHz.

The numbers indicate a win for Qualcomm

Notably, the devices Qualcomm used to measure the performance of the Core Ultra 7 155H, and Core Ultra 9 185H are – Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, and Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 respectively.

In the single-thread test, Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon X Elite is 54% faster than the Core Ultra 7 155H with the exact same power consumption. And when both the chips perform the same, the Arm-based chip consumes 65% less power. While this is still a synthetic benchmark, the difference is huge and it may result in incredible power-efficient operation for Windows going forward.

Moving on to the multi-thread, the Snapdragon X Elite is again 52% faster than the Core Ultra 7 at the same power, and with the same performance, it consumes 60% less power. It’s very similar to the single-thread performance and means a similar potential outcome for the future.

Speaking of the more powerful Core Ultra 9 185H, it performed only slightly better as compared to Core Ultra 7 in multi-thread. However, the Snapdragon X Elite still outperformed it with 41% faster performance at the same power and 58% less power at the same performance.

For those who are waiting for a graphics test, the Snapdragon X Elite is 36% faster using the UL 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark as compared to the Core Ultra 9 185H at the same power. It consumes 50% less power if the performance is the same.

Qualcomm also claims that its Arm-based offering is capable of outperforming Apple’s M3 chip by 22% on Geekbench 6.2.

Will Snapdragon-powered laptops dominate all of its competition in performance?

Nonetheless, there isn’t a commercially available device with the Snapdragon X Elite chip yet. It indicates two things – firstly we cannot rely solely on the power efficiency to get an idea of the battery life. Secondly, without accounting for the cooling system, we cannot claim that it will perform the best. Manufacturers might focus on lightweight systems with small batteries and cooling with a reasonably good performance. It will surely benefit but may be in a different way.