The takeaway: Qualcomm claims that its new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is the best laptop processor on the market, and early third-party benchmarks mostly supports this assertion. However, Apple retains the GPU performance crown, and it might regain first place in CPU performance if a recent M5 leak proves accurate.
After Qualcomm unveiled its latest smartphone and slim-PC processors last week, ComputerBase tested the company's new flagship chip against laptop CPUs from AMD, Intel, and Apple. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme left the Ryzen AI 9 and Core Ultra 9 processors in the dust in synthetic benchmarks, but the M4 Pro held its own.
For the benchmarks, Qualcomm provided a near-production-ready 16-inch notebook equipped with 48GB of LPDDR5X RAM. However, ComputerBase could not test for TDP or thermal fluctuations.
In Geekbench, the 18-core, 5GHz Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme's 23,693 multi-core score edged past the M4 Pro Mac Mini's 22,550 and established a significant lead over the Intel and AMD chips. Among its x86 rivals, the Core Ultra 9 285H topped out at just 17,612 while equipped with 32GB of RAM. In the single-core test, the M3 and all M4 variants surpass AMD and Intel but barely fall short of the X2 Elite Extreme. It should be noted that while the Snapdragon was tested on Geekbench 6.5, the other CPUs ran Geekbench 6.3.
All processors were tested using Cinebench 2024.1. While the Qualcomm chip's 1,964 multi-core score significantly outpaced the competition, the M4 and M4 Pro edged out its single-core score of 161, scoring between 172 and 173 points. The M3, AMD, and Intel processors fell further behind. And although Apple's chips don't support the Procyon AI Computer Vision benchmark, the Snapdragon's 4,147 score more than doubled the Core Ultra 9 288V's 1,816.
In contrast, Qualcomm fell far behind the M4 Pro in GPU benchmarks. In 3DMark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited, Apple's top chip scored 7,817, significantly outclassing the X2 Elite Extreme and outperforming all non-Apple processors. The story is the same with 3DMark Solar Bay Unlimited.
Furthermore, Russian YouTuber Wylsacom claims to have benchmarked an M5 iPad Pro, with results suggesting that some of Qualcomm's wins might be short-lived. In Geekbench 6.5 single-core, the 9-core standard M5 scored 4,133 points, just slipping past the X2 Elite Extreme's 4,080. However, the Snapdragon and M4 Pro post much better multi-core scores, with 23,491 and 22,509, respectively, compared to the M5's 15,437. Among Apple chips in Geekbench 6.5 GPU Metal, the M5 outperforms the M1 Pro but falls significantly short of the M1 Max and M4 Pro.
The first laptops equipped with Snapdragon X2 Elite are set to debut next year. Apple has not yet announced any M5 devices, but they might emerge soon.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite looks good in early CPU benchmarks, but Apple holds GPU crown
