It's CES 2026, which means all computing companies are coming out to show off their new wares. Qualcomm is among the first out of the gate with its Snapdragon X2 Plus chipsets, including 10-core and a 6-core variants.

They're successors to the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core and Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, respectively, so yes, that lower-tier variant does have two fewer CPU cores. Still, Qualcomm is promising that they're better.

"Modern professionals and creators want to do more, create more, and push the limits of generative AI and all-day performance. Snapdragon X2 Plus platform delivers the power, efficiency and intelligence to surpass their ambitions, making each experience more responsive and personal," said Kedar Kondap, SVP and GM of computing and gaming at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

They're supposed to be way better than Snapdragon X Plus

Let's talk about performance improvements, because while I found the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core to be a solid product, I didn't quite feel that way about the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core when I reviewed the Asus Zenbook A14.

On both variants of the Snapdragon X2 Plus, Qualcomm is promising a 35% boost in single-core performance and a 78% increase in NPU performance. There's no surprise there, since they both use the same CPU cores, and they both have the same 80 TOPS NPU that you'll find in the Snapdragon X2 Elite.

And then, there's 17% better multi-core performance in the 10-core and 10% better multi-core performance in the 6-core, along with 29% better GPU performance in the 10-core and 39% better GPU performance in the 6-core. Notably, the comparison to last-gen is to the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core and 8-core, respectively, so the original 10-core chip actually had a much better GPU.

The Snapdragon X Plus 8-core did struggle with GPU performance, so you're seeing a bigger increase there. This time around, both products use the same GPU, the X2-45, but clocked at 1.7GHz and 0.9GHz. However, for the previous generation, the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core actually had the same GPU part, the X1-85, as the Snapdragon X Elite. That's not the case this time.

Both the Snapdragon X2 Plus 10-core and 6-core have six prime CPU cores, clocked at 4GHz, but the 10-core version has four additional performance cores. On top of that 35% gain in single-core CPU performance, Qualcomm is promising 43% lower power consumption, so battery life should be even better than before, and it was pretty great before.

This isn't the biggest Qualcomm news from CES

While this is one of the first news releases from the show, it feels supplemental to the news that's going to be coming later. And that, of course, is the actual products from laptop-makers.

We've known since Snapdragon Summit that Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme products are going to be announced at the show, and that's the stuff that's actually worth looking forward to. The announcement of the Snapdragon X2 Plus series is similar to if Intel announced Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 9 a few months ago, and then waited until partner announcements to show the Core Ultra 5.

So yes, you're going to see Snapdragon X2 Elite products at CES, and they'll likely come with Snapdragon X2 Plus configurations. It's not likely that you'll see many products that max out at Snapdragon X2 Plus.

Products using the Snapdragon X2 Plus and Snapdragon X2 Elite will be available in the first half of this year.