Qualcomm recently unveiled its Snapdragon X Elite system-on-a-chip, which is the first Arm processor for Windows that features custom-designed cores, called Oryon cores. Up until now, manufacturers building Arm chips made use of pre-existing cores licensed by Arm. The only brand that made custom cores was Apple, and that's part of the reason its M-series chips have blown away the competition. But with Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm is now designing its cores, and early results show that this makes a big impact.

After running some benchmarks on Snapdragon X Elite, the chipset beats Apple Silicon in single-core performance by a pretty significant margin. However, it's important to remember that raw performance isn't entirely what makes the best Apple Silicon Macs so great. The raw performance gains, increased thermal thresholds, and better efficiency all are huge parts of why high-level Arm processors can outperform x86 systems. But it isn't everything. Here are a few factors that will dictate how Snapdragon X Elite really performs in the wild, and they're much less tangible than speed.

1 Hardware optimization is crucial to success

Apple Silicon gave Apple something far more enticing than speed: control. Apple can now control every single part of its Mac lineup, from the chipset, to the display, to the operating system. While Qualcomm has support from nearly all the major Windows OEMs, it's unlikely that Qualcomm will have the same level of control over its Snapdragon X Elite systems. That's because unlike Apple, Windows OEMs aren't ditching x86-based systems anytime soon.

As a result, when companies like Dell or Lenovo conduct research and development for new laptops, they won't just be working with Arm systems. And when Microsoft develops Windows on Arm, it also has the x86 version of Windows to take care of. So while Apple has managed to craft just about every part of the Mac in a way that benefits Apple Silicon in just a few years, it's unclear whether Qualcomm, Microsoft, and the OEMs can all work together in the same way. Hardware and software optimization is one of the best parts of Apple Silicon, so if Qualcomm can't match Apple's cohesion, it might lag behind despite winning in benchmarks.

2 Consistency is more important than infrequent breakthroughs

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite platform, by all accounts, is a breakthrough for the company. It claims that the new chipset beats the M2 chip in single-core tests, and our early benchmarks seem to align with those claims. However, Apple had a similar breakthrough when it released its first custom desktop chip, the M1. As Apple has learned, keeping up the same level of performance gains year-over-year isn't as easy. The M2 chip was a marginal improvement over M1, and the newest M3 chip was another improvement over M2.

Apple's latest M3 platform release shows a steady 15% growth in performance year-over-year across the last two processor generations. Although it isn't as big as the initial leap, it's still solid growth. It looks like Qualcomm has managed to at least match (or even beat) Apple's initial performance leap with Snapdragon X Elite. The question is what a second- or third-generation Snapdragon X Elite platform would look like. How well Qualcomm can consistently improve performance with its Arm chipsets could determine whether these chips can beat Apple Silicon.

3 Native app support is a must

Performance gains over x86 aren't as impactful if commonly used apps are running through an x86 translation layer. Though there are a handful of excellent apps optimized for Windows on Arm, a few developers notably haven't optimized their apps for Arm platforms. The big one is Google, which still has not released a version of Chrome optimized for Windows on Arm. Translation layers allow these apps to run, but their performance is severely limited due to the lack of optimization.

Apple went through this transition period quickly, and by the M2 series, just about every major app was optimized for Apple Silicon. That includes Google Chrome, by the way. This is likely because going forward, every single new Mac released would run on the Apple Silicon platform. The same can't be said about the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite platform. Windows app developers will still have to develop for both Arm and x86, with the latter architecture still being the larger market group for the foreseeable future. If native app support on Windows for Arm is lacking, it could diminish the capabilities of Snapdragon X Elite.

Qualcomm can still do it

You may have noticed a theme throughout this list: None of the pitfalls I've outlined here have anything to do with Qualcomm. With Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm has done its part to make Windows Arm devices truly competitive with Apple Silicon. Now it's in the hands of Microsoft and the OEMs. Qualcomm can still be successful and beat Apple Silicon, but it desperately needs extensive support and commitment from all the biggest players in computing. That's hard to get, which is why I need to see a bit more before I view Snapdragon X Elite as a true Apple Silicon competitor.