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Here's your first peek at Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X Elite chips for Windows PCs

Qualcomm recently gave a preview of its upcoming and first impressions appear to be mostly positive.  To start, there will be four chips in the lineup. The entry-level model, the Snapdragon X Plus, will have , whereas the other three more powerful versions, which are simply called Snapdragon X Elite, will have 12 cores. Here's a table detailing their specs. What's interesting to note is that unlike Apple's and Intel's chips, these chips do not use a hybrid architecture with performance and efficiency cores.  Unsurprisingly, these chips will have NPUs (neural processing units) for AI applications. The NPUs for all four chips are the same and . To give this number some context, consider that Apple's newest M3 chips have Neural Engines that are capable of delivering up to 18 TOPS. Earlier this month, reports said that Microsoft was confident that these that will rival the latest from Apple, Intel, and AMD, and the latest reports seem to confirm that. According to reports against the latest chips from Apple, Intel, and AMD. One report said, "The Snapdragon X Plus and Elite couldn’t beat the Apple M3 in single-core processing on either Geekbench 6 or Cinebench 2024, but they could in multicore".  Qualcomm claims these new chips will deliver "breakthrough" battery life, but this will depend greatly on the size of the battery used. Perhaps what's more relatable is that Qualcomm claims machines running Snapdragon X Elite will when running Office 365 apps.  Overall, based on early reports, the Snapdragon X Elite chips show promise. That said, we'll have to wait until we see the chips in action in machines that people can actually buy before we know for sure. For years, the benefits of a Windows Arm laptop have been touted and teased, but the final product, whether it's because of poor hardware or the lack of app support, has been lacking. This is surely the last chance for Qualcomm and Microsoft to make it work. Source: , ,