Qualcomm is announcing the Snapdragon X Plus chipset today, along with the full range of SKUs for the Snapdragon X Elite. Along with 10 Oryon cores, the Snapdragon X Plus comes with the same 45TOPS Hexagon NPU that you'll find in the Snapdragon X Elite.

“Snapdragon X Series platforms deliver leading experiences and are positioned to revolutionize the PC industry. Snapdragon X Plus will power AI-Supercharged PCs that enable even more users to excel as radical new AI experiences emerge in this period of rapid development and deployment,” said Kedar Kondap, senior vice president and general manager of compute and gaming, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “By delivering leading CPU performance, AI capabilities, and power efficiency, we are once again pushing the boundaries of what is possible in mobile computing.”

You'll have choices

A different chip doesn't mean a different PC

The biggest news here isn't that there's a new Snapdragon X SKU. I've been reporting on that since January. What's really interesting is that the Snapdragon X Plus is designed to fit into the same hardware that a Snapdragon X Elite would.

Historically, Arm-based laptops don't give you choices in which chip you can get, not that Qualcomm has had a whole bunch of options to begin with. But now, you'll be able to choose between the X Plus and X Elite the same way that you'd choose between a Core i5 and a Core i7.

As we know, the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 are set to exclusively use Snapdragon X series processors, so this should add some context to the rumors. Both of those products will offer Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite options, so you'll be able to choose between different tiers of the product like you have in the past.

Snapdragon X Plus details

Or: More SKUs of the Snapdragon X Elite

As it stands right now, there are a total of three Snapdragon X Elite SKUs, and one Snapdragon X Plus SKU. The top-end X Elite part, the X1E-84-100, has all the bells and whistles of the product announced back in October. It's got 12 Oryon cores with clock speeds up to 3.8GHz, and two cores that can boost up to 4.2GHz.

The second-tier part, the X1E-80-100, lowers the clock speeds a bit, while the tertiary one doesn't have the two boosted cores at all. The Snapdragon X Plus is basically a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100, but with 10 cores instead of 12.

Here are the full specs:

While you'll see devices with options between the X Elite and X Plus, you probably won't see many devices with options between different Snapdragon X Elite SKUs. More likely, that will depend on a product's target price and power envelope.

Once again, Qualcomm is claiming better multithreaded performance than Apple's M3, although it won't win in single-core. For Geekbench 6, it cited a score of 12,154 for the M3, 13,350 for the Snapdragon X Plus, and 15,610 for the Snapdragon X Elite.

At least one more SKU is coming

The Snapdragon X is still real

Like I said, I've been writing about the Snapdragon X Plus since January, but I've also been talking about another SKU. It wasn't announced today, but it definitely exists, and it'll have Oryon cores.

What I don't know is the timeline. I had thought that it would be announced alongside the Snapdragon X Plus, since the flagship part is already the center of attention. It's entirely possible that Qualcomm will add this third SKU before any Snapdragon X series devices are announced, just with a shorter runway.

Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon X Plus will be launching in devices in mid-2024, but it's pretty clear when the announcement date is. The Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 will be announced on May 20, and between that date and Computex in early June, companies like Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, and pretty much everyone else will be unveiling devices.