Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon X2 Elite and Extreme For Windows PCs (theverge.com)
(Wednesday September 24, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the new-and-shiny dept.)
- Reference: 0179521988
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/09/24/2113246/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-x2-elite-and-extreme-for-windows-pcs
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/news/785068/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-x2-elite-and-extreme-for-windows-pcs
Qualcomm [1]unveiled its Snapdragon X2 Elite and Extreme chips, claiming they're the " [2]fastest and most efficient processors for Windows PCs ." Built on 3nm with up to 18 cores and a 5GHz Arm CPU boost, the chips promise 31% more CPU power, up to 2.3x GPU performance, stronger AI processing, and "multi-day battery life," with devices expected in the first half of 2026. The Verge reports:
> There's also a new 80 TOPS Hexagon NPU, for AI tasks, that offers 37 percent more performance with a 16 percent power consumption improvement, the company claims. Qualcomm's characterizing all of this as a "legendary leap in performance," claiming the Elite Extreme in particular offers "up to 75 percent faster CPU performance" at the same power. But it doesn't say who the competition is, or which chip it was up against, at least not in the press release. And while Qualcomm claims these power savings will lead to "multi-day battery life," that's also what the company said about last year's Snapdragon X Elite.
[1] https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2025/09/new-snapdragon-x2-elite-extreme-and-snapdragon-x2-elite-are-the-
[2] https://www.theverge.com/news/785068/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-x2-elite-and-extreme-for-windows-pcs
> There's also a new 80 TOPS Hexagon NPU, for AI tasks, that offers 37 percent more performance with a 16 percent power consumption improvement, the company claims. Qualcomm's characterizing all of this as a "legendary leap in performance," claiming the Elite Extreme in particular offers "up to 75 percent faster CPU performance" at the same power. But it doesn't say who the competition is, or which chip it was up against, at least not in the press release. And while Qualcomm claims these power savings will lead to "multi-day battery life," that's also what the company said about last year's Snapdragon X Elite.
[1] https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2025/09/new-snapdragon-x2-elite-extreme-and-snapdragon-x2-elite-are-the-
[2] https://www.theverge.com/news/785068/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-x2-elite-and-extreme-for-windows-pcs
San Diego Rocks (Score:2)
by xevioso ( 598654 )
And Qualcomm, headquartered here, is another reason why California rocks. Have your AI, SF. We have the chips that run phones and lots of PCs.
The Osborne Effect incoming (Score:2)
by Gavino ( 560149 )
"Expected to be available 1H26" OK they just killed sales of existing Snapdragon X Elite laptops. The IT industry is littered with stories of companies announcing too early. It even has a name "The Osborne Effect". This part is blatantly stolen from an AI summary... "Although the new models weren’t ready for sale, the announcement caused dealers and customers to cancel orders for the Osborne 1, anticipating the better machines. Sales plummeted. Osborne slashed prices to stimulate demand, but it was
Windows PCs? (Score:2)
Maybe what they mean here is just PCs? Cause hardware and software are two separate concepts. Hopefully same will be true for phones one beautiful morning.
Re: (Score:2)
Will these run Linux at launch?
I think this kind of thing tends to be a not very standard or open SoC. Supporting the ARM cores themselves is not enough.
Look at all the work it's taking Asahi Linux to run on Apple Silicon Macs.