Qualcomm upended the Windows PC market this summer when it introduced the Snapdragon X series of processors, completely changing what you can expect from a Windows 11 laptop in terms of performance and battery life. But if you thought that was impressive, get ready, because it's going to get even better.

During the Snapdragon Summit taking place in Hawaii, Qualcomm hs just teased its next generation of Oryon CPUs (the first generation of Oryon is what powers the Snapdragon X series), and it's looking like a huge leap forward yet again.

Second-generation Oryon will be 30% faster

And Intel falls even further behind

While Qualcomm isn't announcing any new chipsets just yet, the company did give us a glimpse at the single-core performance of the second-generation Oryon CPU compared to what's currently on the market, including the first-generation Oryon processors. The big point of comparison is, of course, Intel, which is still the market leader by a wide margin, and it's seriously impressive.

Compared to the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors, which are still behind the first-gen Oryon CPUs in single-core performance, the next generation of Oryon can deliver 62% faster single-core performance than the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V at the same power level of about 6W. To match that performance of the 2nd-gen oryon processor, the Intel processor needs to use 190% more power, meaning nearly three times more.

But Qualcomm is also improving massively upon the first generation of Oryon. Comparing the performance curves, we see that the second-generation CPU can deliver 30% more performance at the same power level, while using 57% less power to match the peak performance of the current generation.

Simply put, this is a massive leap forward in efficiency and performance, and if (or when) this CPU shows up in Windows laptops, it will be a big deal. However, there is a big caveat here in that the tests for second-generation Oryon CPUs are being run on an Android phone, so the performance on Windows may not be exactly the same.

What does this mean for Windows PCs?

Even better performance and battery life

While Oryon CPUs first showed up on Windows on Arm PCs, Qualcomm is clearly focusing on Android devices for this second-generation, since that's where the performance was tested here. Android phones also need to use less power than a laptop, so it makes sense that efficiency is an even bigger priority there.

But future generations of Snapdragon X are coming to Windows PCs at some point, with some expecting them to arrive as early as next summer, about a year after the original Snapdragon X laptops. A Dell roadmap leak from earlier this year did suggest Qualcomm would introduce the Oryon V2 processors in the second half of 2025, so that's likely the earliest we can expect it.

Regardless of when they arrive, though, the benefits are obvious. By achieving much higher performance at an even lower power level, Snapdragon-powered PCs will be able to deliver even better battery life while performing even faster. Qualcomm is also leading the way in terms of efficiency on Windows laptops, and this kind of improvement will only reinforce that, and bring the company that much closer to Apple Silicon.

Of course, there's a lot we don't know yet, like what kind of improvements we'll get for the GPU or how many CPU cores a purported Snapdragon X2 Elite would have (the first generation X Elite has 12 Oryon cores). But for now, there's plenty to be excited about, and Windows on Arm seems to have a promising future.