The first Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus laptops have arrived and are testing in the lab. Qualcomm's new Arm-based processor promises to deliver performance and efficiency comparable to Apple's M-Series chips. Given that the best Macbook is the current gold standard for power and durability, the Snapdragon X chip can make the best Windows laptop as attractive as Apple's notebooks.

Tom's Guide has been testing or testing several Snapdragon X laptops, including the Asus Vivobook S15, Microsoft Surface Pro11 and HP Omnibook X. Based on the test results so far, the Snapdragon X Elite matches or exceeds the Apple M processor. It also supports laptops with Intel's AI-focused Meteor Lake chip. Battery life results are still pending, although we have at least one promising result to discuss.

So, how well does the Snapdragon X Elite work against the competition? The performance benchmark results are as follows: We will update this article with more battery life results as soon as we have them.

The Snapdragon X Elite is certainly a powerful laptop processor. So far, we have tested the unit that packed the Snapdragon X Elite X1E80100. This CPU features a 12-core, 3.4GHz base clock, and a 45-top. It's not the best x Elite chip, but it's also not the lowest end, as you can see on Qualcomm's website. The result is quite impressive.

Testing Overall CPU Performance In Geekbench6, the Snapdragon X Elite performed well in single-core and multi-core benchmarking tests. Qualcomm had previously claimed that its silicon could shatter the Apple M3 chip. That's not exactly the case, but the Snapdragon X Elite laptop is certainly on par (or better) than Apple silicon. The chip also works well compared to the Intel Core Ultra7 155H CPU, a midrange Meteor Lake processor. While the M3-powered MacBook Air13-inch, MacBook Air15-inch and MacBook Pro14-inch have better single-core performance than their rivals, notebooks with the X Elite and Ultra7Cpu have better multi-core performance, especially the Microsoft Surface Pro11. You probably won't notice a big difference during actual use, but it's interesting that the M3 is lagging behind in multi-core.

The Snapdragon X Elite laptop also performed well in the Handbrake video editing test, which transcodes 4K video clips to 1080p.The Surface Pro11 performed the task 1 minute faster than the HP notebook. All X Elite laptops finished faster than the Apple M3Macbook, but Meteor Lake machines were generally faster overall.

Note that the Asus Vivobook S15 number is taken directly from the test by managing editor Jason England and not from the test lab. When you get an Asus laptop, update these numbers.

Don't expect to play the best PC games at a decent frame rate on a Snapdragon X Elite laptop. Certain titles, like Fortnite, are not built for Arm-based computers, so they can't run on these machines. You can use Prism emulation tools to run x86 games on Arm, but playing games natively on these machines can be a problem.

As mentioned above, Civilization VI, which is not a graphically demanding game, only hits 20 frames per second on the Snapdragon X Elite laptops we tested. The game runs at an acceptable frame rate, though it could not reach 60fps on M3 or Meteor Lake laptops.

However, this is only 1 game. As well as benchmarking other titles, we will continue to test the Snapdragon X Elite laptop. 

The Snapdragon X Elite also did not do well compared to the Intel Core Ultra in 3DMark graphics tests.

In conclusion, if you want to play a hoaxing game, we recommend that you use 1 of the best gaming laptops.

The Snapdragon X Elite laptop is still doing battery testing. This is because, at the time of writing, 2 of these machines are running well beyond 12 hours. And given the 1 first test results of these machines, it seems Snapdragon X can finally help Windows laptops last about the same length (or perhaps longer) than Macbook.

In a battery test where the display was set to 150nit brightness to continuously surf the web over Wi-Fi, the Microsoft Surface Pro11 lasted 12 hours and 10 minutes. We usually run 3 battery tests and average timeouts, but the fact that we are a little over 12 hours on a Windows machine is a big sign.

12 hours is impressive, but it's still not close to the Macbook in the table above. But to be fair, some laptops can match Apple's in terms of battery life.

As we reported, CoPilot+ Pc does not run various apps or games at startup. Samsung has posted apps and games that don't run on the Galaxy Book4Edge. Given how this notebook will work with the Snapdragon X Elite chip, it is expected that the apps and games listed will not work with similar laptops from other manufacturers either.

The compatibility notice (first reported by the Wall Street Journal) states that many security programs, various Adobe software and Google Drive desktop apps do not currently run on Samsung's new Copilot+PC laptop.  Games like League of Legends and Microsoft's Halo Infinite will also not run on the Samsung Galaxy Book4Edge AI and probably all CoPilot+ Pcs. However, there are over 1,000 games on Steam.Battle.net The Epic Games Launcher, etc., can play more than 1 frame per 30 seconds in full HD on Copilot+ Pc, according to Qualcomm. The company says Snapdragon X Elite also supports cloud services such as Xbox Game Pass and GeForce NOW.

Compatibility issues may be resolved as more developers create apps and games for the Arm architecture. For example, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign will be compatible on May 7, with After Effects, Premiere Pro and Media Encoder coming soon (according to Adobe). However, other applications may take longer to work with Arm. While the Snapdragon X Elite doesn't completely obliterate its competitors, Qualcomm's chips appear to be very competitive with Intel and Apple Silicon. Even if it's not perfect for gaming (at the moment), the Snapdragon X Elite laptop offers excellent performance and (potentially) powerful battery life. If more Snapdragon X Elite (and X Plus) laptops deliver similar results, I think it's no exaggeration to say that Qualcomm has notified Apple and Intel.