{"id":676191,"date":"2026-01-05T20:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/676191\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:50:17","slug":"qualcomms-next-gen-snapdragon-x2-laptops-are-here-and-they-brought-a-new-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/676191\/","title":{"rendered":"Qualcomm\u2019s next-gen Snapdragon X2 laptops are here \u2014 and they brought a new friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme<\/a>, the laptop chips that, it claimed, would be \u201cthe fastest and most efficient processors for Windows PCs.\u201d They might finally give Intel and AMD a run for their money. Now, CES 2026 is bringing us the first actual laptops based on both that silicon and the Snapdragon X2 Plus \u2014 a pair of just-announced chips aimed at more budget machines.<\/p>\n

PCs with the X2 Elite and ones with the X2 Plus should both arrive around the end of the first quarter, Qualcomm spokesperson Cassandra Garcia-Bacha tells The Verge. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Qualcomm<\/p>\n

Qualcomm isn\u2019t promising particular price points like it did in 2024, when it proclaimed<\/a> it\u2019d bring the cost of a Snapdragon X laptop down to $700 \u2014 which makes sense, I suppose, as the global RAM shortage<\/a> currently has PC prices in flux. You\u2019ll have to watch this week as various PC makers do \u2014 and don\u2019t \u2014 announce those prices themselves.<\/p>\n

But Qualcomm senior director Mandar Deshpande tells me that Snapdragon X2 products are \u201ctrying to land in similar swim lanes\u201d to the previous generation, whose \u201cElite\u201d tier started at $1,000, \u201cPlus\u201d at $800, and \u201cX\u201d at $600 and up.<\/p>\n

While the Plus chips won\u2019t have quite the power of the X2 Elite<\/a>, it sounds like they\u2019re no slouch. Though the 10-core and 6-core variants have fewer CPU cores than the Elite (which boast 18 and 12, respectively), Qualcomm claims they can still wipe the floor with a competing low-power Intel Lunar Lake or Arrow Lake chip in both CPU performance and efficiency:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Qualcomm<\/p>\n

And for AI tasks, they still contain the same 80 TOPS NPU as Qualcomm\u2019s higher-end chips. It claims they\u2019re \u201cthe world\u2019s fastest NPU for laptops in its class\u201d:<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Qualcomm<\/p>\n

That said, the Plus won\u2019t have nearly as much GPU for gaming and other graphical tasks. Overall, Qualcomm says you\u2019re looking at up to 35 percent CPU gains and up to 39 percent GPU gains over a previous-gen chip, depending on whether you\u2019re looking at the 10-core or 6-core model, and we liked the Snapdragon X Plus-powered 12-inch Microsoft Surface Pro<\/a>, as one example.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Qualcomm<\/p>\n

Twenty-nine or 39 percent GPU gains might sound respectable, but it may not be enough to make these good for gaming<\/a>, and it\u2019s nothing compared to the 2.3x gains Qualcomm boasts for the Elite \u2014 and the 6-core chip has dramatically lower GPU frequency than even the 10-core chip, at just 0.9GHz versus 1.7GHz.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Qualcomm does say the Plus requires up to 43 percent less power than the previous gen, though, with \u201cmulti-day battery life,\u201d and promises they won\u2019t drop performance when you\u2019re on battery. And even the Plus can support up to 128GB of LPDDR5x memory, not that manufacturers are likely to bite in this RAM economy!<\/p>\n

If you plan to game with a Qualcomm + Windows laptop, you\u2019ll be pleased to hear the company says it\u2019s ramping up graphics driver support. It\u2019s not promising day-and-date updates for each hot game as they launch, but Deshpande says Qualcomm is currently pledging quarterly driver updates and already supports some 1,400 games, covering 90 percent of \u201cthe most played game titles.\u201d Its Snapdragon Control Panel app should automatically keep GPU drivers up to date, and the drivers should natively support DX 12.2 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenCL 3.0.<\/p>\n

While Deshpande says both the Plus, like the Elite, can scale to most any wattage for a wide range of designs \u2014 remember, portable performance is about cooling as much as or more than the chip \u2014 he says most should fall in the 12\u201335W envelope of traditional thin-and-light laptops, there may be some fanless designs, and we might see mini PCs that add an additional 10W of headroom for extra performance, too.<\/p>\n

Qualcomm won\u2019t talk about operating systems other than Windows (say, SteamOS<\/a>) or Windows on Arm handhelds today, though. There\u2019s \u201ca lot of interest on other operating systems, we\u2019re looking at that, we\u2019re working on developing some of those solutions and everything, but CES is not the time we\u2019re announcing support,\u201d says Deshpande.<\/p>\n

But there is one hint: We should keep an eye on the 2026 Game Developers Conference for potential Windows handhelds, Garcia-Bacha tells me. GDC 2026<\/a> will run March 9th to 13th.<\/p>\n

Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/p>\n