After more than a decade of effort, Qualcomm successfully launched Windows on Arm laptops last year, significantly impacting the market and challenging both Intel and AMD. This shift has led to Intel being ousted from consumer-grade Microsoft Surface devices. Today, Qualcomm has announced the next generation of its groundbreaking processor, which will feature two distinct variants: the Snapdragon X2 Elite and the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme.
Qualcomm is making bold claims in its press release, stating that these new processors are “the fastest and most efficient chips for Windows PCs.” While competitors like Intel and AMD are likely to contest these assertions, Qualcomm's new 3nm chips reportedly offer up to a remarkable 31 percent increase in CPU performance compared to the previous generation, all while maintaining the same power consumption. Alternatively, these chips can deliver performance with up to 43 percent less power usage.
On the graphics side, users can expect up to 2.3 times the GPU performance thanks to a new 1.85GHz GPU. The Snapdragon X2 Elite utilizes a 3rd-generation Oryon CPU, which will also appear in Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite 5 chip. This CPU configuration features up to 18 cores, with 12 cores capable of reaching speeds up to 4.4GHz, and two cores that can hit an impressive 5GHz—marking a significant milestone for Arm CPUs.
Furthermore, Qualcomm has introduced an 80 TOPS Hexagon NPU dedicated to AI tasks, claiming a 37 percent increase in performance while improving power consumption by 16 percent. This new NPU is touted as the fastest laptop NPU available, contributing to what Qualcomm describes as a “legendary leap in performance.” The Elite Extreme variant, in particular, is said to deliver “up to 75 percent faster CPU performance” than its competitors at equivalent power levels. However, the press release does not specify which competitors are being referenced, leaving room for interpretation.
Qualcomm also emphasizes that these power savings could lead to “multi-day battery life,” although the term “multi-day” might refer to two eight-hour workdays based on previous models’ performance. Last year’s Snapdragon X Elite laptops provided between 14 to 18 hours of battery life, setting a solid benchmark for expectations.
Gaming on Arm architecture, which required further development last year, is set to improve with the introduction of a dedicated 18MB high-speed cache known as Adreno High Performance Memory. This enhancement is expected to provide a significant boost for gaming experiences. Additionally, creators using Adobe software can anticipate substantial performance increases, including 28 percent faster photo editing in Photoshop and 43 percent quicker exports from Lightroom, along with similar enhancements for video analysis in Premiere.
In a notable announcement, Razer’s CEO Min-Liang Tan revealed that the company will integrate its Synapse software with Windows on Snapdragon, although he did not confirm plans for a Snapdragon-based gaming laptop. The testing of the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme at over 50W of power marks a significant shift, expanding the capabilities of Snapdragon chips beyond thin and light laptops to larger PC configurations.
Unlike last year’s rapid rollout following Qualcomm's initial announcement with Microsoft, the new processors are expected to be available in the first half of 2026. Additionally, while Qualcomm has hinted at a collaboration with Google regarding Android for PC, the specifics remain unclear. Sameer Samat, Google’s president of the Android Ecosystem, hinted that the merging of ChromeOS and Android could follow a similar timeline, generating excitement for developments in the upcoming year.
