Snapdragon X Elite processors promise to make Windows ARM-based PCs properly competitive with x86 competitors. As systems make their way into the wild, benchmark results are starting to emerge. In an odd twist of events, though, Qualcomm’s chips are falling well below their advertised performance. A firmware update could resolve this shortfall, but its cause is currently unknown.
A poor showing for its best CPUs is the last thing Qualcomm needs. Windows on ARM already has a troubled history, something the company will undoubtedly be keen to leave behind. Snapdragon X Elite is billed as a turning point for the architecture in its fight against x86. Right now, though, it doesn’t appear up to task.
Reddit user caponica23 has put Snapdragon X Elite through its paces via Geekbench 6 (via Tom’s Hardware). More specifically, they benched a Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge sporting the processor. Their tests saw the CPU produce a single-core score of 1,829 and multi-core score 11,379. This is well below the respective 2,977 and 15,086 scores previously claimed by Qualcomm. Worse still, this the CPU slower than iPhone 12 Mini, a now three-year-old smartphone.
These discrepancies are naturally disappointing but there does appear to be some oddities at play. For example, Snapdragon X Elite boasts a 3.8GHz boost clock, rising to 4.3GHz for dual-core workloads. In these tests, however, the processor didn’t run at frequencies anywhere near this, topping out at 2.52GHz. Curiouser still, results remain the same regardless of whether the laptop was plugged in or running on battery.
As such, it appears this could be a firmware issue. Further evidence for this comes from previous benchmarks of Snapdragon X Elite’s GPU performance. At first, results were similarly uninspiring, with Resident Evil Village running at 40-50fps at 1080p medium settings with FSR enabled. Thankfully, an update brought things up to a much more exciting 60-100fps.
These Copilot+ PCs equipped with Snapdragon X Elite aren’t due to launch until June 18. So, while these results appear concerning, we shouldn’t take them as definitive yet. There’s still time for Qualcomm to address these issues, if they are indeed patchable. ARM shows promise against x86, in terms of performance and battery life, and we’d love to see that fulfilled.
