The Snapdragon X2 Just Made Intel and AMD Look Slow

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The first generation of Snapdragon X processors proved that ARM chips could run Windows laptops without feeling like a compromise. Solid battery life, quiet operation, and enough raw speed to handle everyday work without stuttering. The second generation isn’t interested in proving anything. It’s just posting numbers that make the competition look slow.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 series showed up in Geekbench results this month inside an ASUS Zenbook A16. The top-end X2 Elite Extreme posted a single-core score of 4,033 points. That’s more than 30% ahead of AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 at 3,048 and Intel’s Panther Lake Core Ultra X9 388H at 3,066. Multi-core told a similar story: the X2 Elite Extreme hit 23,198 against Intel’s 17,924 from a 16-core chip.

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The Snapdragon X2 lineup: nine chips, two families

The Snapdragon X2 lineup spans nine chips across two product families. The X2 Elite covers seven models: four 18-core chips at the top (the X2E-96-100, X2E-94-100, X2E-90-100, and X2E-88-100, sold as “Elite Extreme”) with the Adreno X2-90 GPU, and three 12-core chips (the X2E-84-100, X2E-80-100, and X2E-78-100) with the Adreno X2-85 GPU. The X2 Plus fills in below with two models: a 10-core X2P-64-100 and a 6-core X2P-42-100, both on the Adreno X2-45 GPU. That spread gives laptop makers plenty of room, from slim daily drivers to beefier creative machines.

Every X2 chip hits at least 80 AI TOPS, with two Elite SKUs reaching 85 TOPS. That’s enough to land every one of them in the Copilot+ PC category Microsoft has been pushing since last year. The X2 Plus also packs optional built-in 5G along with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth, which makes them more than budget options. If you spend most of your time working from coffee shops or airport lounges, that always-on connection is a real perk.

Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme benchmarks so far

The Geekbench numbers need context. The X2 Elite Extreme was running at around 4.45GHz in testing. Intel’s Panther Lake chip clocked in at about 4.0GHz, even though Intel lists a 5.1GHz boost on its spec sheet. Whether that gap shrinks when Intel’s final chips land in real laptops is still an open question. But the lead Qualcomm is showing in early testing is wide enough that it won’t vanish entirely.

Multi-core results back that up. The X2 Elite Extreme’s 18-core design gives it a clear edge in heavy tasks, posting 23,198 points against Intel’s 17,924 from a 16-core chip. For things like video editing, compressing large files, or running a dozen browser tabs at once, those extra two cores and faster per-core speed add up fast. You feel it most when every core is working at once, the kind of load where a laptop usually slows down and the fans start spinning.

The GPU side tells a different story. In Geekbench’s OpenCL test, the X2 Elite Extreme’s Adreno X2-90 scored 44,786 points. Intel’s Panther Lake GPU cleared 55,000. Qualcomm says the X2’s graphics are a big step up from the first generation, with full DX12.2 Ultimate support. That’s a welcome upgrade for light gaming and creative apps. But built-in graphics still can’t keep up with what Intel is putting into Panther Lake, and the gap shows up in daily use, not just test scores. Against Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max, early comparisons from WCCFTech and Notebookcheck suggest the gap grows even wider in GPU-heavy work.

What the Snapdragon X2 means for ARM laptops

How much these benchmarks matter in practice depends on the software side. Microsoft’s PRISM layer, which lets ARM chips run older x86 apps, has gotten much better. Windows Central reported in June 2025 that 100 of the most popular Windows apps were already running on ARM without emulation, and users were spending over 90% of their time in those native apps. Microsoft repeated those numbers in September.

The remaining problems are narrow but real. Anti-cheat systems like Riot’s Vanguard still don’t have ARM drivers, so games like Valorant won’t run at all. Some older software with outdated drivers can also cause trouble, since Windows Central points out that old drivers can’t be emulated on ARM. For most people doing regular work or creative tasks, though, the gap between ARM and x86 has shrunk to the point where you probably won’t notice it.

Battery life is the other half of Qualcomm’s pitch, and it might matter more than speed. The company says X2 laptops will last multiple days on a single charge, building on the gains that made the first Snapdragon X Elite so efficient. ASUS is quoting 21 hours or more on the Zenbook A16. If those numbers hold up in real testing, the X2 could deliver 30% more speed while matching or beating the battery life of the chips it replaces. That’s a tough combo for Intel and AMD to match right now, and for most buyers it matters more than any benchmark score.

First Snapdragon X2 laptop: ASUS Zenbook A16

ASUS has confirmed the Zenbook A Series as its first Snapdragon X2 laptops. Japanese pricing and a late March 2026 release window are already out. The Zenbook A16 from the Geekbench tests is likely one of the first to ship. ASUS seems to be placing these as the battery-first option next to its Intel and AMD ZenBooks, aimed at people who want long runtimes and always-on connectivity more than raw gaming power. The Zenbook A16 pairs its X2 Elite Extreme chip with a 16-inch 3K OLED screen at 120Hz, up to 48GB of RAM, and a weight around 2.65 pounds. That’s a sharp setup for a work laptop, and the OLED panel should look noticeably better than most screens at this weight.

Other brands should follow soon. Lenovo, Dell, HP, and Samsung all shipped first-gen Snapdragon X laptops, and wider X2 options are expected by late Q1 or early Q2 2026. Pricing outside Japan hasn’t been confirmed yet.