Intel Core 7 150U vs Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-00-1DE

Intel Core 7 150U

The Intel Core 7 150U is a high-end notebook CPU based on the Raptor Lake-U Refresh (RPL-U) series (Alder Lake architecture), which was introduced in January 2024. The CPU offers 2 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficiency cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support hyperthreading (therefore 12 threads together) and clock from 1.8 to 5.4 GHz. The E-cores clock from 1.2 - 4 GHz and should offer comparable performance to old Skylake cores (e.g. i7-6300HQ). The Core 7 150U also supports vPro Essentials management features.

Performance

Due to the similar clock rates, the performance is slightly above the old Core i7-1365U. As usual with Alder Lake, the performance is heavily dependent on the cooling and the TDP settings.

Graphics unit

Like its predecessor, Intel integrates an Intel Xe-based graphics unit called Intel Graphics in Alder Lake. All 96 EUs are probably activated on the 150U.

Features

Like Tiger Lake, Alder-Lake-P also has WiFi 6E and Thunderbolt 4 (4x) partially integrated. The integrated memory controller supports LPDDR5-6400 and the integrated Gaussian and Neural Accelerator (GNA) is installed in version 3.0. The Quick Sync 8 media engine is the same as in Rocket Lake and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC and AV1 decode. The chip supports PCIe 5.0 x8 for a dGPU and two PCIe 4.0 x4 for SSDs. The PCH also offers PCIe Gen3 x12.

Power consumption

The Intel Core 7 150U is specified with 15 watts (PL1) TDP and 55 watts (PL2) max. turbo power. The processor is manufactured using the further improved Intel 7 process (10 nm SuperFin).

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-00-1DE

The Snapdragon X Elite X1E-00-1DE is a pretty fast ARM architecture processor (SoC) for use in Windows mini-PCs and laptops. As the fastest X Elite chip in September 2024, the X1E-00-1DE has 12 Oryon CPU cores running at up to 4.3 GHz, along with the 4.6 TFLOPS Adreno X1-85 iGPU, the 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU and an impressively fast LPDDR5x-8448 memory controller delivering over 100 GB/s of throughput. USB 4.0, TB 4 and PCIe 4 are all onboard, too.

Three slower Snapdragon X Elite flavors exist, known as the X1E-84-100, X1E-80-100 and X1E-78-100.

Architecture and Features

The Oryon cores (3 clusters of equally powerful cores; 12 threads) are mostly based on Nuvia IP and they reportedly make use of the ARM v8.7 microarchitecture. Much like modern AMD and Intel processors, the Snapdragon chip is compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt 4 however it does not appear to support eGPUs as of September 2024.

Like most X Elite and X Plus processors, the X1E-00-1DE is based on the larger die codenamed Hamoa. The processor is believed to have at least 12 PCIe 4 and 4 PCIe 3 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices. NVMe SSDs are supported with a throughput of up to 7.9 GB/s. There is also a 45 TOPS NPU present for accelerating AI workloads.

Performance

When all of the 12 cores are under load, they run at up to 3.8 GHz. The 4.3 GHz clock speed is only achievable under single-thread or dual-thread loads.

Based on this Notebookcheck review of a Samsung laptop powered by the X1E-84-100, a chip that's supposed to be just a hair's width slower than the X1E-00-1DE, the top-of-the-line Snapdragon processor should be almost as fast as the Core Ultra 7 155H in applications compiled for ARM while being up to 30% slower when executing x86 code.

Graphics

The 4.6 TFLOPS X1-85 iGPU has 1,536 unified shaders running at up to 1,500 MHz. It is reportedly (ChipsAndCheese) based on the significantly older Adreno 730 iGPU, rendering the X1-85 DX12-compatible but not DX12 Ultimate-compatible. AVC, HEVC and AV1 video codecs can be both hardware-decoded and hardware-encoded; with VP9, only decoding is possible. The highest monitor resolution supported is UHD 2160p rather than SUHD 4320p.

Its gaming performance is in many use cases almost as good as the Intel Arc 8 for reasonably playable experience in many 2023 and 2024 games such as Baldur's Gate 3 at 1080p on low graphics settings.

Power consumption

Since this is a CPU for developer systems, it will probably be allowed to consume a lot of power and thus be able to deliver the best performance possible. Up to 80 watts are to be expected depending on the system and the power profile chosen.

It must be said that power consumption figures for X Elite and X Plus processors include RAM, unlike it is with most Intel and AMD chips.

The Qualcomm SoC is built with the TSMC N4P process for better-than-average, as of H2 2024, energy efficiency.