Leaks for Windows 11 laptop with Snapdragon X Elite show a CPU that’s a serious threat to Apple’s M3

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite
(Image credit: Qualcomm)

Benchmarks of the incoming Snapdragon X Elite chip have been spilled and they show that it’s silicon which is capable of giving Apple’s best a run for its money.

This leakage was highlighted by Windows Latest and it consists of a bunch of Geekbench scores for a Qualcomm ‘ZH-WXX’ PC which is purportedly a device toting the Snapdragon X Elite. This is an incoming ARM chip for Windows 11 laptops that has a lot of folks excited (we’ll talk a bit more about why later on).

Equip yourself with the salt-shaker as ever with leaks, but one benchmark shows the Snapdragon X Elite achieving a single-core result of 2,574 and for multi-core the chips hit 12,562 in Geekbench 6. As Tom’s Hardware, which also flagged this result, pointed out, that’s faster than AMD’s Ryzen 9 7940HS by around 4% and 8% respectively for single and multi-core.

What about compared to Apple’s silicon? Well, it’s clearly faster than the M2 as you might expect, but it isn’t quite up there with the latest M3 chip from Apple.

However, the Snapdragon X Elite is not too far off the M3 Pro, as Windows Latest highlighted. It’s running at about 80% of the speed of this Apple SoC (with both of these CPUs having 12 cores, or at least in theory for the Qualcomm processor – as noted, plenty of salt is required with all this).


Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit photos from stage and demo samples

(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)

Analysis: Reasons to be both excited and skeptical

This is an impressive result compared to both Apple and AMD silicon at this point. We must bear in mind that the Snapdragon X Elite obviously isn’t out yet, and the CPU is running in test devices here using Windows 11 preview builds. (Windows 11 24H2, which will come on board these Qualcomm laptops, as has been previously stated).

The results from the finalized products on the hardware and software fronts should be quicker, meaning that Qualcomm’s processor could pose a genuine threat to Apple’s M3.

As ever, we need to be cautious around interpreting leaks, and there’s a wrinkle here. We mentioned multiple benchmarks at the outset, and indeed there are a number of Geekbench scores for the Snapdragon X Elite (or rather, the ‘ZH-WXX’ laptop).

Windows Latest flagged up four other results from Geekbench 6, in fact, and while single-core performance remained pretty consistent, multi-core dropped somewhat in these other scores.

Indeed, some are markedly lower for the Snapdragon X Elite, but that’s likely due to test conditions, such as the laptop being throttled (maybe because battery saver mode had been turned on, to suggest an obvious example). We just don’t know enough about the parameters of these tests, in short.

So, make of that what you will, but is it possible the fastest result here is a more unrepresentative best-case scenario? You could read it that way, but then again, as Tom’s pointed out, Qualcomm has made some performance claims for Geekbench 6 in the past with the Snapdragon X Elite – which show it’s pretty close to the M3’s performance levels, as suggested here. While internal results and claims must be regarded with caution, too, Qualcomm would look foolish to be very off the mark here.

At any rate, we’ll find out for sure later this year when AI PCs – the new breed of notebooks Microsoft keeps harping on about that’ll be aiming to rank on our list of the best laptops – with this Qualcomm SoC emerge in mid-2024, in theory.

Those PCs will have next-gen Windows on them, as previously confirmed by Qualcomm, and in fact those users will get what has been confirmed as Windows 11 24H2 before everyone else. (The next big Windows update, on a new platform called Germanium, won’t be rolled out to existing Windows 11 users until later in the year).

Other points of excitement with Snapdragon X Elite-powered notebooks is that they’ll supposedly offer ‘days’ of battery life with seriously impressive levels of power efficiency, not to mention an NPU that’ll really pep up AI workloads (built-in supercharging for Copilot). Suffice it to say that there are a lot of keen watchers of how this SoC will pan out, and this latest leak won’t slow down the hype train.

You might also like...

TOPICS

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

Read more
Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite
Qualcomm in 2024: year in review
Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit photos from stage and demo samples
Can Qualcomm compete with AMD and Intel in the desktop CPU space in 2025?
Geekom QS Series
Obscure Chinese PC vendor has the world's first Qualcomm PC out of the gate: QS1 Pro runs Windows 11 Pro, has Wi-Fi 7 and up to 2TB SSD
Qualcomm Snapdragon X 8-core chip
Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X arrives at CES 2025, and I’m excited about how this CPU could seriously heat up competition with budget laptops and Copilot+ PCs
A Microsoft Surface Laptop being shown at Microsoft's Copilot Plus PC Showcase
Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC price cuts didn’t help disappointing sales apparently – but there’s still a glimmer of hope
A person using the M4 MacBook Pro.
Apple Mac in 2024: year in review
Latest in Windows Laptops
The Microsoft Surface Laptop on a blue background with text saying Lowest price next to it.
The Microsoft Surface Laptop is our best-rated model and right now it's close to half price with this massive $700 discount
Dell XPS 13 Laptop in graphite on yellow background with big savings sign
Save $400 on the top-rated Dell XPS 13 - one of the best laptops money can buy
The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro on a blue background next to text saying Don't Miss.
This half-price Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro is easily the best Presidents' Day laptop deal
Microsoft Surface Pro on a blue background
Best Buy has a huge $350 discount on this excellent high-end Surface Pro bundle
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 15IRU9 angled with coffee
I tested the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 15IRU9 and found a no-frills laptop at a decent price
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid open
I tried the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid and found it very unique - and very expensive
Latest in News
Super Mario Odyssey
ChatGPT is the ultimate gaming tool - here's 4 ways you can use AI to help with your next playthrough
Ray-Ban smart glasses with the Cpperni logo, an LED array, and a MacBook Air with M4 next to ecah other.
ICYMI: the week's 7 biggest tech stories from Twitter's massive outage to iRobot's impressive new Roombas
Brad Pitt looks over his right shoulder with 'F1' written behind him
Apple Original Films will take you behind-the-scenes of a racing cockpit in this new thrilling F1 movie trailer
AI writer
Coding AI tells developer to write it himself
Reacher looking down at another character from the Prime Video TV series Reacher
Reacher season 3 becomes Prime Video’s biggest returning show thanks to Hollywood’s biggest heavyweight
Finger Presses Orange Button Domain Name Registration on Black Keyboard Background. Closeup View
I visited the world’s first registered .com domain – and you won’t believe what it’s offering today