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Qualcomm

Snapdragon X2 Elite
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Qualcomm announces Snapdragon X2, the first 5 GHz Arm CPU, its ‘biggest advance in PC gaming’ and the chip that might finally make gaming on Arm an actual thing

by admin September 25, 2025



Qualcomm has announced its second-gen Snapdragon X2 SoC for PCs and with it come some big claims, especially for gaming performance. The new chip has 18 CPU cores, 50% more than the the OG Snapdragon X, and over double the GPU performance. But will this actually translate into usable gaming performance?

First, some more details as announced at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit 2025. Qualcomm has shrunk Snapdragon X2 down to 3 nm thanks to a newer production process from TSMC. That’s essentially the enabler for everything else that follows.

The 18 cores are all a new third-gen Oryon design that Qualcomm claims was started from a “blank slate.” The result is 39% improved per-core performance and 50% faster peak multi-threaded CPU performance. To that you can add 2.3x peak GPU performance and 78% more NPU performance.


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What’s more, Qualcomm claims to have created the first 5 GHz Arm chip. Oh, and the top chip now has a 192-bit memory bus and supports 4K 144 Hz displays. This is serious stuff.

In fact, Qualcomm has introduced a whole new tier of Snapdragon for the top model. The 18-core 5 GHz variant will be know as the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme Edition. Shades of Intel, intentionally or otherwise.

Of course, it’s gaming we’re most concerned with and Qualcomm is making some pretty serious claims. Performance is up hugely compared with the first-gen Snapdragon X chips. Black Myth Wukong runs 2.1x faster than before. The same applies to Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Hitman World of Assassination is claimed to be 2.2x faster, and a slew of further games are around the 2x mark.

Qualcomm is making some mega claims for gaming performance. (Image credit: Qualcomm)

All told, Qualcomm’s head of compute and gaming, Kedar Kondap, says the new chip is “Snapdragon’s biggest advance in PC gaming.” However, just as important as pure performance is efficiency. Here, Qualcomm reckons the new chip delivers 44% more CPU performance per watt than an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H and 75% more performance per watt than AMD’s Ryzen 9 AI HX 370.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

As for GPU efficiency, the second-gen Snapdragon X is said to be 52% better than Intel’s Lunar Lake laptop chips. The same gaming performance as Lunar Lake but with dramatically lower power consumption, or a lot more performance for the same power budget, would be very interesting for a handheld gaming PC. Bottom line, if all of this is true, then the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme Edition is one heck of a chip.

There will also be a 12-core plain-old Elite version. It’s not totally clear if that offers the same GPU and NPU performance, but the branding for the Adreno GPU implies the 12-core chip gets a lower spec. But if it does, that’s a pity as an 18-core CPU is probably overkill.

Of course, the big question hanging over all this is game support. “We are collaborating across the industry to bring more titles on Snapdragon,” Kondap said in front of a presentation slide showing a long list of supported titles.


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In our testing, Snapdragon’s gaming support thus far has fallen well short of Qualcomm’s bullish claims, whatever the raw capabilities of its chips. And that remains the doubt. Even if the new Snapdragon X2 is super fast, will games actually run reliably?

The top chip even gets a 192-bit memory bus. (Image credit: Qualcomm)

But here’s the thing. Sometimes you get a sense from a product launch that a company knows they have something special. That’s the vibe I got from the Snapdragon X2 launch. A lot of that is probably down to the use of TSMC 3 nm technology. No other PC vendor is currently offering 3 nm GPU tech, integrated or discrete.

On paper, then, this thing looks like a huge advance and the best APU for handheld PCs. It should be far faster than anything AMD or Intel can currently offer, if you ignore AMD’s Strix Halo, which isn’t truly a chip for handhelds and costs megabucks.

In the end, of course, it will all hinge on software, both the games themselves and Qualcomm’s GPU drivers. We’ve heard it all before when it comes to gaming on Arm. But if Qualcomm can make some strides on the software, then this chip needs to be taken very seriously in the handheld gaming market. It could be awesome.

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September 25, 2025 0 comments
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Qualcomm Debuts Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, Its Next-Gen Laptop Chips
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Qualcomm Debuts Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, Its Next-Gen Laptop Chips

by admin September 24, 2025


Perhaps the most exciting part of the chip is the graphics performance: The Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme both use a new Adreno GPU architecture. Qualcomm says power efficiency has improved by 2.3X, so hopefully that means these laptops can scale up performance when it’s needed, in games or creative applications. Qualcomm says gaming will take a big step forward in this next generation. Qualcomm showed a chart with 2.2X faster frame rates in Hitman World of Assassination and 2.1X faster in Black Myth Wukong. Of course, these Qualcomm laptops continue to rely exclusively on integrated graphics, meaning the discrete GPUs in dedicated gaming laptops are still on another level of performance. Snapdragon X2 chips will also support higher refresh rate screens, now up to 144 Hz and up to three external 5K monitors.

Lastly, the company claims there’s a much more powerful neural processing unit (NPU) with 80 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of on-device AI processing performance. The Snapdragon X set the initial bar with 50 TOPS, which Apple, Intel, and AMD then had to match in their next chips. We’ve yet to see the explosion of on-device AI processing be relevant for the average person, but hopefully, more performance will provide an incentive for developers to build more unique AI experiences that can utilize the NPU.

Qualcomm still boasts “multi-day” battery life on these new chips, though performance was the priority in the company’s product presentation. This is a change from the original marketing around the first-generation Snapdragon X chips, which centered battery life as its primary selling point.

As always, it helps to go first. These second-generation PC chips have been announced months ahead of devices from competitors, which may not arrive until the first quarter of 2026, making it easier to compare with previous-gen chips. Intel is expected to launch its highly anticipated A18 chips (also known as Panther Lake) later this year, and Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel could change everything in the world of PCs. Apple is also expected to debut an M5 chip next month.

A New Smartphone Chip

Alongside new PC chips, Qualcomm also detailed its recently announced mobile chips, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. These were officially unveiled last week, but at the company’s Snapdragon Summit conference, it shared new details on how these chips will perform.

Barely a week has gone by since Apple’s A19-powered iPhones hit the market, but Qualcomm is already claiming that its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the “fastest mobile CPU in the world,” with a record clock speed of 4.6 GHz (Apple’s A19 Pro has a clock speed of 4.26 GHz). Like the PC chips, graphics and AI processing have the largest leaps in performance, with a purported 23 percent faster GPU and 37 percent faster NPU. Some slightly faster single-core performance in your next phone might not be noticeable, but the significantly faster GPU could have a bigger impact on mobile gaming.



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September 24, 2025 0 comments
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