Snapdragon X Elite vs Intel Core Ultra and Apple M3: Qualcomm's SoC reportedly excels in efficiency and outperforms Meteor Lake

Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon X Elite is a whopping 54% ahead of the Core Ultra 7 155H in Geekbench 6 single-core test when both chips have the same power draw. The former is also able to match the performance of the Core Ultra 7 155H while consuming 65% less energy. In the Geekbench 6 multi-core benchmarks, these performance deltas shrink to a still-impressive 52% and 60% respectively

Similarly, the Snapdragon X Elite also compares quite favorably to the Core Ultra 9 185H with PCWorld reporting a 51% and 41% advantage for the ARM chip in Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core benchmarks, respectively, when both CPUs are utilizing the same amount of power. At the same level of performance, the Snapdragon X Elite is far ahead of the Intel chip by using 65% and 58% less energy in single-core and multi-core benchmarks respectively

Moving to actual figures which come to us courtesy of Just Josh on YouTube, the 23 W Snapdragon X Elite reportedly earns single-core and multi-core Geekbench 6 scores of 2,786 and 13,881 respectively. The results are 22% and 11% better than the Core Ultra 7 155H in the single-core and multi-core departments.
The 80 W Snapdragon X Elite shows a 15% and 7% improvement over the Core Ultra 9 185H with single-threaded and multi-threaded scores of 2,921 and 15,136 respectively.

When compared to Apple silicon, the Snapdragon X Elite outputs mixed results. The lower power variant of the Snapdragon X Elite (23 W) appears 16% faster than the base Apple M3 SoC in the multi-core Geebench 6 test with a score of 13,881 vs 11,981 while Apple’s chip is 12% ahead in the single-core department with a result of 3,119 vs 2,786.

Furthermore, the Snapdragon X Elite supposedly lags behind both the 11-core and 12-core variants of the Apple M3 Pro in both single-core and multi-core tests with a multi-threaded delta of up to 10.5%.

That said, the 23 W Snapdragon X Elite does seem to edge out the 11-core M3 Pro in the Cinebench 2024 multi-threaded benchmark measuring maximum CPU performance.

Unfortunately, the Snapdragon X Elite doesn’t seem to utilize the added power consumption that well as increasing the wattage to 80 W only nets the SoC a 5% and 9% improvement in the Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core scores. This performance boost is only enough to match the 12-core Apple M3 Pro in the multi-core test as the M3 Max absolutely crushes the Snapdragon X Elite with a massive 40% advantage.

While the Snapdragon X Elite bringing speedy performance is commendable, the main draw of the chip and the reason why the Windows crowd is excited about the SoC is the promise of massively improved efficiency. According to Qualcomm, the SoC will fulfill its promise at least when it comes to the 23 W variant

Per the figures shared by Just Josh, the Snapdragon X Elite with a 23 W power limit scores 41 points when considering the Cinebench 2024 score vs the watts consumed. This score beats out every other chip in the comparison, including the Apple M3 Pro, except the base M3

Once again, the 80 W Snapdragon X Elite presents a pretty poor case as it appears less efficient than the Core Ultra 9 185H and falls way behind the M3 Max

Long story short, the Snapdragon X Elite seems like a big step forward for Windows laptops when it comes to efficiency at least at lower power limits. All we have to do now is wait and see if independent testing confirms Qualcomm’s results and how well laptops utilizing the SoC compare against their Intel, AMD, and Apple rivals.

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