Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Arm CPU pops up in Geekbench and wallops the x86 laptop competition by over 30% in single-core performance
Qualcomm's new second-gen Snapdragon X2 CPU has appeared in the Geekbench results browser for the first time (via Notebookcheck) and posted some pretty impressive numbers. In terms of single-core performance, it's over 30% faster than the best laptop CPUs from AMD and Intel.
Geekbench is but one metric and obviously not a real-world application. But especially when it comes to single-core performance, it tends to align reasonably well with actual, usable performance.
For the record, then, an Asus Zenbook A16 equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-96-100, which is the top-spec model from the new X2 family, has been logged in the Geekbench 6 online results. In terms of single-core CPU performance, we're talking 4,033 points.
For context, the fastest laptop with the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip knocks out 3,048 points by the same metric. As for Intel's hot new Panther Lake chip, that clocks in at just under 3,000 points.
So, in terms of plain old single-core performance, the new Qualcomm chip is fully one third faster. That is a heck of a lot. Imagine if AMD or Intel brought out a new CPU that had over 30% more performance than the previous gen. Quite.
The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-96-100 looks pretty nifty in multi-core performance, too. But then it is an 18-core model. Of course, the implications for actual PC performance in general and, more specifically, gaming performance are far more complicated. Even if the new X2 chip does offer comfortably the best single-thread pure CPU performance, it remains an Arm chip and that means, for now, most games have to be run in emulation mode to support x86 code.
What's more, despite the fact that Qualcomm's CPUs theoretically support discrete GPUs, good luck finding a system that actually has one. Instead, you'll be using Qualcomm's integrated Adreno GPU.
Qualcomm says the GPU in the second-gen X2 chip is much improved over the first generation. But it's still an integrated GPU. As it happens, the new chip also appears in Geekbench's OpenCL graphics test. Here it scores 44,786 points. That compares with over 55,000 points for Intel's excellent Panther Lake iGPU.
Of course, those Geekbench graphics scores are all running natively, whereas the Qualcomm chip will typically have some emulation overhead when actually running games. So, you'd expect the gap to be a bit bigger in the real world.
What would be really interesting would be to see the Qualcomm chip running a native Arm game alongside a good discrete GPU. Then we'd really know what we are dealing with. But then that's the problem with Arm gaming right now. Games tend to be emulated, there are no discrete GPU solutions, and so on.
It's possible this could change if and when Nvidia's long awaited Arm chip for the PC, codenamed N1X, arrives. If anyone can make an Arm chip work for gaming, it's Nvidia. But for now, gaming on Arm holds plenty of promise, but limited real-world appeal.