Snapdragon X Plus 8-Core Benchmarks Show Promise Of Power-Sipping Performance
We've already written about the new Snapdragon X SKUs, so if you're simply curious to know what they are, head over to that post to see those details. Here, we're going to instead discuss our experience going hands-on with a machine sporting one of the new SoCs at IFA Berlin.
You can see said system at the top of the page; it's that classy-looking all-red machine. That's a Qualcomm reference platform for the Snapdragon X1P-42-100 processor. This particular chip has one of its four-core clusters disabled, leaving it with eight Oryon CPU cores, 30MB of total cache, and a peak clock rate of 3.4GHz on a single core. That's a considerable step down from the X1E-84-100 that was in the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge we reviewed, and the all-core clock is lower still at 3.2GHz. Regardless, here's what Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Series family looks like as of today...
The Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 also makes significant cuts to its GPU, but the NPU remains untouched at 45 TOPS. So, how does it perform? Well, we didn't have a lot of time with the system to run a comprehensive set of benchmarks, but we did manage to run a small handful of the most common benchmarks. Check 'em out:
Snapdragon X Plus SXP-42-100 Eight-Core CPU Benchmarks
First up, we've got everyone's favorite rendering test based on Maxon's Cinema 4D, it's Cinebench 2024. We didn't have time to let the single-core test complete, so this chart is only showing multi-core results.
Not a particularly strong showing for the eight-core Snapdragon X Plus part, at least on the face of it, but it's beating a couple of ULV Zen 4 processors, and that ain't bad. It's not clear what kind of power limit our reference platform was laboring under, but considering the low multi-core clock rate we think this result is pretty decent.
Next up is Geekbench 6. We have the chart sorted by multi-core performance, and unsurprisingly, the eight-core Snapdragon doesn't rank particularly highly on a chart full of 12-core and 16-core CPUs. However, it comports itself pretty well in the single-threaded test, landing ahead of some of AMD's parts and within striking distance of one of the fastest Intel mobile chips on the market—for now, anyway.
In BrowserBench Speedometer 2, we see the Snapdragon X Plus scream into what is very nearly a first-place finish if not for the much larger and more expensive Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. Speedometer 2 results can be pretty non-representative in the modern day, though, as the benchmark was never meant for machines as powerful as these. When we look at the current-gen Speedometer 3 benchmark, things play out more like what we would expect. The 24.4 score here is still quite good overall considering that it's only scant percentage points behind the HP Elitebook Ultra G1Q and its faster Snapdragon X Elite SoC.
For a convenient gaming benchmark that isn't crippled by Prism emulation, we ran 3DMark's Wild Life Extreme benchmark. This is a grueling test for integrated graphics because while the geometric load is relatively low, it runs in full-on native 4K UHD resolution. While the Snapdragon X Elite in our Galaxy Book4 Edge put up an excellent result, this lower-end Snapdragon X Plus part struggles with the heavy workload. It still keeps pace with a couple of AMD Phoenix-based machines, though.
Finally, for an AI benchmark, we went to UL's Procyon AI Computer Vision test. This benchmark result comes in extremely close to the results from our Snapdragon X Elite machines—unsurprising, since, as we discussed before, the NPU in this system is unmodified from the NPU in the other Snapdragon X chips. Suffice to say that sacrificing some CPU cores and GPU grunt doesn't hurt AI performance on these parts.
Besides the reference platform, we also got to see a sneak peek of ASUS' Vivobook S15+. This machine was one of the first Snapdragon X Elite PCs, but ASUS will be releasing a new model with the eight-core Snapdragon X Plus chips inside that should be a bit more affordable, similar to Dell's new $899 Inspiron 14. Qualcomm is obviously keen to get Snapdragon X parts into the hands of anyone and everyone it can, and bringing prices down is a solid step toward that goal.
Going back over the benchmarks, while the eight-core Snapdragon X Plus SoC doesn't bring home any victories, it does put up respectable numbers for its power envelope. Performance is surprisingly competent for a chip that tops out at 3.4GHz for all cores with a 4GHz single core boost, and considering the boost clocks on AMD and Intel's CPUs tend to be in the middle-4GHz range.
Ultimately the value proposition of these systems will depend on the pricing at retail of course, which is projected to be in the just under $800 range. Considering the potential power efficiency available from these lower-octane Snapdragon X parts, we think that laptops sporting Snapdragon X Plus 8-core processors could be a perfect match for students, mobile office workers, and similar use cases that can also begin to tap the power of AI.
