Qualcomm is launching its Snapdragon X processors in two main variants: Elite and Plus. How big is the difference and is the extra power of the Elite chip worth it?

After some mediocre attempts, including the Snapdragon 8cx series, Qualcomm is renewing its offensive in the laptop chip market with the Snapdragon X series. These ARM-based chips can perfectly compete with equivalents from AMD or Intel and even outperform the classic x86 processors.

ARM in a Windows laptop is finally an option to consider with Qualcomm Snapdragon Will you go for the Snapdragon X Elite or the more modest Snapdragon X Plus?

Five variants

Qualcomm actually has five processors on the market right now. Four of them are variations of the Snapdragon X Elite. They have very similar specifications but differ slightly in clock speed.

Presumably, Qualcomm, like other chip developers, makes a distinction to achieve a higher yield in production: variants that do not reach the maximum clock speed find their way into laptops such as a “lighter” Snapdragon X Elite.

Currently, there is only one variant of the Snapdragon X Plus. Below you can see the specifications:

For this test, we pit the Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X1E-80-100 against the Qualcomm Snapdragon Plus X1P-64-100. We test the processors in Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 devices with almost identical configurations except for the processor.

Raw computing power

We start our comparison with an analysis of the pure processing power based on the Cinebench 2024 benchmark. This allows the CPU to render a complex image using every available thread to calculate the pixels. More and faster threads usually correspond to a faster rendering time, as the pixels are calculated faster and with more pixels at the same time.

Each Qualcomm Snapdragon X has one thread per core. The Snapdragon X Elite and Plus have the same Oryon cores under the hood. On both chips, the cores have a base clock of 3.4GHz. The Snapdragon X Elite can theoretically boost up to 4GHz on one core, but we don’t see much of that in this test. Single-threaded, the two chips score the same.

Multithreaded, we see a different story. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite has twelve cores, the Plus only ten. The Snapdragon X Elite is therefore the more powerful of the two chips, with exactly the headroom you would expect from two additional cores.

More diverse workloads

For our next test, we’ll look at Geekbench 6. Just like Cinebench 2024, this benchmark runs natively (without emulation) on the ARM processors, but subjects the chips to more diverse workloads that more accurately simulate everyday use. This test also looks at both overall performance and per-core performance.

If we look at each core, we see identical figures again. The 4 GHz boost capacity on one core that you theoretically buy with a Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X1E-80-100 is nowhere to be found. The two Oryon cores with the same clock speed perform their tasks identically.

When testing all cores, the X Elite again performs better. However, the more diverse workloads that Geekbench 6 throws at the chips scale less with the number of cores. The Snapdragon X Elite performs around eight percent better than the Snapdragon X Plus.

Working with real applications

The benchmarks above are clear but somewhat artificial, so we also look at the PCMark 10 Applications test. This measures the (native) performance of a system using tests with Microsoft Office, which include working in Word, Excel and Powerpoint, as well as browsing with Edge. This test is representative of the work you’d actually want to do on a Snapdragon X Elite or Plus-powered computer.

The test confirms what Geekbench 6 already suggested: the Snapdragon below Applications You can see the average test result. This is less than five percent higher for the laptop with the X Elite than for the laptop with the Snapdragon X Plus. The difference is greatest for workloads in Word, but still not much more than seven percent.

In terms of performance alone, we have to say that the added value of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite compared to the X Plus is not very great. For various workloads, such as office work, the difference is not huge. Workloads that permanently place maximum strain on the CPU gain added value from the two additional processing cores.

What is the condition like?

The performance of the processor also affects the battery. We test the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 devices with two simulations of daily workloads. One test focuses on Microsoft Office, with PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets and work in Word, and is similar in design to the PCMark 10 test. It also runs completely natively on ARM. The other is the classic test suite that we use for our tests. It simulates similar work and also deals with photo and video editing, but runs on the emulation layer of Windows.

In both cases, the laptop with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus lasts a little longer, but the difference is not that big. Count on about half an hour more autonomy with the Plus chip. So you’re trading a limited drop in performance for a limited increase in autonomy.

Little difference…

In terms of battery and performance, we have to say that the difference between the Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X1E-80-100 and the Qualcomm Snapdragon Plus X1P-64-100 is actually not that big. Anyone who occasionally ventures into 3D or video editing will feel the added value of the two additional Oryon cores. If you mainly use office software, we doubt that you will really notice the difference.

Furthermore, the GPU and NPU are identical in our test models. The graphics quality is no different, and if you can find a workload in the wild that really benefits from the NPU, it will also deliver similar performance.

…except in your wallet

That makes choosing between the two difficult. Or is it? The basic version of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 with Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X1E-80-100 costs 1,362 euros excluding VAT. If you choose the version with Snapdragon X Plus, you pay 990 euros excluding VAT.

In other words, the biggest difference between the two chips is not the autonomy or the performance, but simply the price. The Plus version costs around 370 euros less than the Elite edition, otherwise the notebook is identical. In our tests, we don’t see much that would justify the extra expense. Price-quality is an easy choice: Qualcomm offers almost the same with the Snapdragon Elite X1E-80-100 as with the Snapdragon X Plus, but for noticeably less money.

Other variants

Finally, a side note: As you can see in the table above, Qualcomm is shipping two more powerful variants of the Snapdragon X Elite, which also have a higher base clock speed. These will probably perform a little better in all tests, but will also demand a little more from the battery. For this analysis, we’ve focused on the processors available to us today via Microsoft laptops.