Back in September, Qualcomm took the wraps off its Snapdragon X2 Elite and Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chipsets for Windows-on-Arm laptops. Now it’s following those up with a more affordable entry in the lineup: the Snapdragon X2 Plus. This new chip is the successor to 2024’s Snapdragon X Plus and is meant to power cheaper Windows machines without sacrificing too much performance.
The Snapdragon X2 Plus is built around Qualcomm’s third‑generation Oryon CPU and features an NPU rated at 80 TOPS. It’s manufactured on a 3nm process and comes in two configurations: a 10‑core version and a 6‑core version.
The 10‑core X2 Plus offers 34MB of total cache and can hit up to 4GHz in multithreaded workloads. The 6‑core model, as the name suggests, has six CPU cores, 22MB of total cache, and the same maximum frequency of 4GHz.
Both variants share the same X2‑45 GPU but have different clock speeds. The 10‑core chip gets a GPU boost up to 1.7GHz, while the 6‑core configuration tops out at 900MHz. They both support LPDDR5X memory and ship with the same 80 TOPS NPU, which Qualcomm claims is the fastest neural processor currently available in a laptop.
Qualcomm is promising consistent performance whether the laptop is plugged in or on battery power, along with what it calls “multi‑day battery life.” Of course, actual endurance will depend heavily on the battery capacity and overall design choices made by laptop manufacturers.
According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X2 Plus delivers up to 35% higher single‑core CPU performance than the previous Snapdragon X Plus. At the same time, it reduced power consumption by 43%. Connectivity is also up to date, with built‑in Wi‑Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, optional 5G, and support for configurations with up to 128GB of RAM.
Availablity:
The first devices powered by the Snapdragon X2 Plus are expected to arrive on the market by the end of June.
