Snapdragon X Elite pushed past 100W shows us what the CPU can offer on the desktop — almost 4X more power for 10% to 30% more performance

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Desktop users aren't missing out on much.

Official render of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit for Windows
(Image credit: Qualcomm via Arrow.com)

According to software developer Jeff Geerling, despite having a significantly higher power limit than regular Snapdragon X Elite laptops, Qualcomm’s official dev kit for the CPU doesn’t show significant performance gains.

The Snapdragon X Elite dev kit uses a mini-PC-like form factor, like the NUC and the Mac Mini, and can run Qualcomm’s flagship laptop chip with much more power than most laptops. More power allows for higher clock speeds, which translates into higher performance.

Geerling tested the Snapdragon X Elite dev kit in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024; during the benchmarks, the CPU ran at about 80 watts and 100 watts, respectively, which is far more than the nominal 23-watt TDP for the Snapdragon X Elite. But the CPU isn’t substantially faster than average in exchange for all that power. Compared to numbers from our Dell XPS 13 9345 review, the dev kit was only about 10% faster in Geekbench 6 and 28% faster in Cinebench 2024’s multi-threaded test.

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Snapdragon X Elite Performance
Header Cell - Column 0 Snapdragon X Elite Dev KitXPS 13 9345
Geekbench 6 Multi-thread15,96914,635
Geekbench 6 Single-thread3,0202,797
Cinebench 2024 Multi-thread1,227~960

Nearly quadrupling the power for performance gains in the 10% to 30% region isn’t particularly efficient. However, Geerling did note that the dev kit’s Snapdragon X Elite scored about on par with Apple’s M3 Pro for only “a bit more power.”

“I’m guessing they pushed the thermals and power to get the X Elite as high as it can go (sacrificing a bit of efficiency for performance),” Geerling said.

Given that the Snapdragon X Elite is first and foremost made for laptops, it’s not too surprising that cranking up the power to lower-end desktop levels significantly reduces efficiency. Processors have a sweet spot where power and performance scale nearly linearly, and clearly, that sweet spot is around the normal 23-watt TDP.

Qualcomm previously stated that its Snapdragon PC chips would come to “all PC form factors” and wouldn’t leave desktops out of the picture. However, the Snapdragon X Elite won’t be that desktop chip, considering its relatively low performance compared to bonafide desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel. Qualcomm is, however, working on its upcoming Snapdragon CPUs for the PC, apparently called Snapdragon X2 or Project Glymur, and those chips might be desktop-grade.

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Matthew Connatser
Matthew Connatser

Matthew Connatser is a freelancing writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes articles about CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, and computers in general.

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • aaronage
    “Nearly quadrupling the power for performance gains in the 10% to 30% region isn’t particularly efficient. However, Geerling did note that the dev kit’s Snapdragon X Elite scored about on par with Apple’s M3 Pro for only “a bit more power.””

    Geerling is wrong. It’s not just “a bit more power” lol, 80-100W is more than double.
    M3 Pro (6P+6E) uses <30W running a full CPU load (full system power draw from the battery).
    Reply
  • Notton
    Another limitation for desktop use is the PCIe lane config
    8+4 lanes of 4.0
    2+2 lanes of 3.0
    It's okay for a mobile chip, but then again, an older R7 7840U has 8+4+4+1+1+1+1=20 lanes of 4.0
    Reply
  • bit_user
    The article said:
    the dev kit was only about 10% faster in Geekbench 6 and 28% faster in Cinebench 2024’s multi-threaded test.
    Geekbench 6's multithreaded benchmark behaves is so weirdly that I think journalists should stop citing it. We don't know enough what it measures or how, but its multi-core scaling is simply atrocious!
    I wonder if the dev kit has customizable power limits. If I had one, I think I'd probably end up wanting to run it somewhere around 45 W.

    I wish we had perf/W curves for it, which we could compare to different laptop CPUs. It's interesting how this slide Intel published features a perf/W curve for Lunar Lake, but only selected point measurements for all of the other CPUs.


    Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-launches-lunar-lake-claims-arm-beating-battery-life-worlds-fastest-mobile-cpu-cores
    Reply
  • tennis2
    soooooo, pretty much behaves like any other OC'd chip....
    Reply
  • Pro74
    It's well known that performance does not scale linearly with wattage. Obviously Qualcomm is doing something wrong else it would achieve 30-50 percent uplift in single core. But it is not alone in its failure . M3s also fail to see a significant uplift in their single core performance despite the significant increase in tdp from m3 to m3 max.

    That performance does not scale linearly with power,has some consequences. The illusion that because , for example a chip that achieves 10 gigaflops per watt at 20 watts is more power efficient than a chip that achieves 13 to 15 gigaflops per watt at 100 watts. X5 increase in power, like in this example was never meant to output x5 in performance .

    Hence for example saying that Apple is more efficient at 20 watts than a competitor at 100 watts is tricky and in most cases a flawed impression.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Pro74 said:
    Hence for example saying that Apple is more efficient at 20 watts than a competitor at 100 watts is tricky and in most cases a flawed impression.
    That's why we need perf/W curves for the CPUs concerned.

    Here's a fun plot I made from composite multithreaded performance data on Raptor Lake and Zen 4.

    I wish more reviewers got on board with this sort of perf/W testing, because then we could make better tradeoffs on where to set power limits. Obviously, it's workload specific. Having data for the 22 sub-scores in SPEC2017 would cover most bases, at least for non-gaming usage.
    Reply
  • usertests
    I'd buy that for a dollar!
    Reply
  • defunctup
    aaronage said:
    “Nearly quadrupling the power for performance gains in the 10% to 30% region isn’t particularly efficient. However, Geerling did note that the dev kit’s Snapdragon X Elite scored about on par with Apple’s M3 Pro for only “a bit more power.””

    Geerling is wrong. It’s not just “a bit more power” lol, 80-100W is more than double.
    M3 Pro (6P+6E) uses <30W running a full CPU load (full system power draw from the battery).
    so this isn't exactly true and not the fairest comparison. the M3 Pro hits a maximum wattage of 73.6w under load according to Notebookcheck. And because the SD X Elite dev kit is a desktop device, noting only the power draw of the M3P on battery is a bit disingenuous. it's well known laptops will scale wattage down on battery compared to plugged it, and yes even modern Macbooks do it. that's why sites like NBC check the full wattage when run under maximum load while on power, which is a much more apt comparison to the X Elite dev kit.
    Reply
  • TheHerald
    Pro74 said:
    Hence for example saying that Apple is more efficient at 20 watts than a competitor at 100 watts is tricky and in most cases a flawed impression.
    Yeap, that's how we ended up at Intel not being efficient 😂
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    defunctup said:
    so this isn't exactly true and not the fairest comparison. the M3 Pro hits a maximum wattage of 73.6w under load according to Notebookcheck. And because the SD X Elite dev kit is a desktop device, noting only the power draw of the M3P on battery is a bit disingenuous. it's well known laptops will scale wattage down on battery compared to plugged it, and yes even modern Macbooks do it. that's why sites like NBC check the full wattage when run under maximum load while on power, which is a much more apt comparison to the X Elite dev kit.
    That's a combined CPU + GPU stress test though, and is total system power (including screen at max brightness). This article and the person you are responding to are talking about CPU-only benchmarks/power.

    If you look at the CPU-only results in your link (that also use an external monitor), they measure roughly 30-40W.
    Reply