Qualcomm announced its flagship Snapdragon X2 Elite chips for laptops |
|
 |
|
|
Along with the top-of-the-line SoC for flagship smartphones, Qualcomm also unveiled two new ARM-based laptop solutions. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme model is the first chip in the series with a frequency of 5 GHz, while its simplified version, the X2 Elite, is aimed at more affordable mobile PCs. Both new products are manufactured using a 3 nm process and are equipped with third-generation Oryon cores. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is an 18-core model (12 x 3.6 GHz + 6 x 4.4 GHz), with two cores capable of reaching 5 GHz in ?turbo boost? mode. The mobile platform with 53 MB of cache memory is positioned as a solution for professionals who use AI tools in their work. It supports LPDDR5X-9523 RAM  Random Access Memory (RAM) is the place in a computer where the operating system, application programs, and data in current use are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computers processor. with speeds of up to 228 GB/s.The Adreno X2 with a frequency of up to 1.85 GHz is claimed to offer a 2.3x performance increase over the first-generation chip. The iGPU supports DirectX 12.2 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenCL 3.0 APIs, as well as the ability to connect up to three 60Hz 5K monitors. According to Qualcomm, the Hexagon NPU module is capable of ?squeezing? up to 80 TOPS (INT8), making the new processor well suited for running modern large language models (LLMs). The more affordable Snapdragon X2 Elite comes in two versions. The older one (X2E-88-100) has the same number of cores as the Extreme version, but its clock speed is lower: up to 4.7 GHz. The younger one (X2E-80-100) is equipped with 12 cores and a less powerful ?built-in? component, but it has the same NPU. The architecture of all new products includes a Qualcomm X75 5G modem (download speed up to 10 Gbps) and a FastConnect 7800 chip (Wi-Fi 7 + Bluetooth 5.4 LE Audio). The Qualcomm Spectra ISP image processing processor supports cameras with a resolution of up to 36 MP (4K @ 30 fps, HDR, 10-bit color depth for streaming video). Another useful feature of the new generation chips is support for Snapdragon Guardian technology for searching and remotely locking/erasing data on lost laptops. The first laptops with the new Qualcomm chips are expected to hit the market in the first half of 2026. |
