The PC industry in 2024 is probably the most interesting it's been in a long time. Qualcomm threw its hat in the ring with the Snapdragon X series processors, and it clearly had AMD and Intel shaking in their boots, as both quickly followed up with their own new lineups of chips.

But if you ask me, Qualcomm is still easily in the lead here, and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon.

Qualcomm totally changed the game

x86 can't catch up overnight

There was a lot of build-up leading up to the launch of the Snapdragon X series of chips, with the amazing promises of efficiency and performance. At the same time, there were obvious questions about whether Qualcomm could deliver, because we'd heard promises of efficiency many times before.

But — lo and behold — Qualcomm delivered. I've only had the privilege of reviewing one Snapdragon X Elite laptop myself, but I've read many others, and one of the most consistent things is how performance is almost totally unaffected in balanced mode compared to high performance mode. These are laptops that are just fast when you need them to be, yet sip power when you don't. In my review of the Asus Vivobook S 15, it was the only time I've ever seen a laptop get the same (approximate) Geekbench score in best performance and in balanced mode alike.

AMD and Intel have both been promising big changes since then, but they still have to prove themselves, especially Intel. The announcement of Intel Core Ultra Series 2 sounds very promising, but we have to wait to find out if these processors can actually deliver the performance and battery life Intel has been claiming. Considering how many years these companies have had to prepare, you'd think that if the lack of efficiency could be fixed so quickly, it would have been before Qualcomm entered the scene. There are reasons to be skeptical.

AMD and Intel's alternatives are not cheap

Qualcomm is still offering more affordable options

There's another big factor to this, though. Qualcomm knew that to compete with Intel and AMD, it had to offer different tiers of its product, and right out of the gate, we got multiple variants of the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus. With that, we have laptops starting at around $1,000 featuring all these benefits, like instant wake, fantastic power efficiency, and a capable NPU that supports Copilot+. The Dell INspiron 14 Plus starts at $950 with the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus chip.

AMD responded quickly, sure, but the Ryzen AI 300 lineup only includes Ryzen 9 models, the top of the line. And in fact, when I met with AMD during IFA 2024, it was mentioned that Ryzen 7 and lower tiers would only be coming in 2025. The most prominent laptop with these chips right now is HP's OmniBook Ultra, and that costs $1,380 (at writing time, it's discounted to $1,100), and even then that's including a middle-of-the-road 2.2K display.

Intel's Lunar Lake lineup does include more chips, but once again, looking at the offerings on the table, we have the OmniBook Ultra Flip from HP, starting at $1,600 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 (keep in mind a Core Ultra 9 model also exists). The Asus Zenbook S 14 starts at $1,500, also with a Core Ultra 7. And again, this is without any guarantee that these chips can actually live up to what Qualcomm has already delivered or what Intel has promised.

Qualcomm is already getting ahead of the game again

The Snapdragon X Plus 8-core is going to be a big deal

Not satisfied with leading the pack already, Qualcomm is also making the smart move and introducing another member of the Snapdragon X series with the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, which is just going to bring its signature efficiency and powerful NPU to even more users before Intel and AMD can even catch up with its existing lineup.

The Snapdragon X Plus 8-core is still faster than an Intel Core Ultra 7 155U, according to Qualcomm, while using significantly less power. Sure, that's a U-series chip, but it's also a top-tier one, and the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, right now, is the lowest tier in the lineup. Even if Lunar Lake brings big improvements, this chip is looking to be extremely well positioned.

And if you can already get laptops for under $1,000 with the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus, you can easily see how this new tier can bring prices even further down, possibly into the $800 range. At that point, Qualcomm will be leading at most price points, while Intel and AMD are still trying to catch up on the high end.

There's more to PCs than efficiency

All of this isn't to say that Qualcomm is going to take over the market suddenly. Particularly with gaming, there's just too much that can still go wrong, with a lot of games just not working on PCs with Snapdragon. They just won't launch, So no matter what Qualcomm does right in terms of efficiency, there are groups of people who should never buy one of these laptops.

But that's also what things are like now. Truly good Snapdragon PCs have only been on the market for three months, and the Windows ecosystem has revolved around x86 for decades. It's not going to change overnight, but it is very likely going to change as time goes on, and things are going to get better for Arm PCs. It feels like we're going to witness some major changes in the PC landscape in the coming months and years.