Tested: Snapdragon X Elite Laptops for PC Gaming
2024 is an exciting year for Windows as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite hardware inside Copilot+ PCs offers a viable alternative to traditional x86 processors, promising longer battery life. But how do these laptops fare in gaming?
Despite Qualcomm’s claims that games should work seamlessly on Snapdragon X Elite, skepticism remains. Games are often developed for specific platforms, making compatibility a potential issue.
To test the gaming performance of Qualcomm’s chips, we compared Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7 with an Intel Core Ultra processor and Intel Arc integrated graphics against a Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 2-in-1. The results were surprising.
Qualcomm vs. Intel Integrated GPUs
Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips come with integrated Qualcomm Adreno X1 GPUs, with performance varying across different chip models:
- Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100: 3.8 TFLOPs
- Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100: 3.8 TFLOPs
- Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100: 3.8 TFLOPs
- Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100: 4.6 TFLOPs
Understanding Qualcomm’s naming conventions is crucial when purchasing a Qualcomm-powered Windows laptop.
While the Snapdragon X Elite laptops offer exciting advancements in processor technology, their gaming capabilities may not match up to traditional gaming laptops with dedicated GPUs. As the industry continues to evolve, the balance between power efficiency and gaming performance remains a key consideration for consumers.
