Snapdragon X Elite's first real-world benchmarks can't even beat an older iPhone, but a fix may be out soon

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A hot potato: Qualcomm hyped up its new Snapdragon X Elite processor as a game-changer for Windows PCs, promising performance that could take on Apple's mighty M-series chips. But if the first reviews of X Elite-powered laptops are to be believed, it looks like Qualcomm may have oversold its new baby.

One Reddit user, u/caponica23, shared a disappointing review of the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge laptop packing the X Elite chip. After running benchmarks like GeekBench and CrystalDiskMark along with some subjective battery and gaming tests, the results were... not great.

The GeekBench scores, which test CPU performance, came in at 1,829 for single-core and 11,379 for multi-core while on battery power. Plugged in, it barely inched up to 1,841 and 11,537, respectively. Those numbers are way below what Qualcomm demoed at press events, where they flaunted scores of 2,977 single-core and 15,086 multi-core.

Understandably, the pitchfork-wielding mobs are out in full force. One furious user highlighted on X how the Galaxy Book4 Edge's single-core score doesn't even beat the ancient iPhone 12 mini from 2021.

It's not like these results are anomalies, either – the user found multiple other Galaxy Book4 Edge benchmarks on the app scoring around the same disappointing 1,800 range. Their theory is that Samsung intentionally limited the CPU clock speeds to avoid heat and battery life issues.

Circling back to u/caponica23's review, gaming wasn't much better initially, with Resident Evil Village experiencing "severe frame drops." However, a fresh update has fixed that as the user pointed out with an update to the original post. The game now plays at 60-100 FPS on the same settings with no frame drops, which is quite an impressive feat if true. Touching 100 FPS on a game as demanding as RE Village is gaming laptop territory.

Sadly, that update doesn't do anything about the abysmal benchmark scores, with the same user noting that CPU speeds do not exceed 2.52 GHz – well below the promised 4.0 GHz boost clocks. But considering that Samsung is actively optimizing the system further, as they did with the latest update, there's a good chance this problem will also be fixed.

There are also claims that battery optimization is handcuffing the chip's performance out of the box. The Galaxy Book4 Edge apparently lasted over ten hours on a charge, though that's still short of MacBook Air levels.

The jury's out on whether Qualcomm's grand claims for the X Elite will hold up with the review embargo still in place. If Samsung doesn't address the issues on time, it could get ugly for Qualcomm and its new flagship Windows chip.

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Snapdragon X Elite's first real-world benchmarks can't even beat an older iPhone, but a fix may be out soon

 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has Qualcomm EVER been able to surpass the benchmarks of the equivalent Apple device?

Why should we expect differently just because Qualcomm says so?
 
Geekbench scores across different hardware and platform are not comparable and it's not comparable to any real-world applications. Geekbench scores are meaningless as no software anyone runs performs like Geekbench. A 15% performance advantage shown in Geekbench could be a 1% or no gain on real world applications. It's especially bad on mobile phones where the scores shown can be higher than a powerful laptop that can actually do more work.

Squid Surprise said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has Qualcomm EVER been able to surpass the benchmarks of the equivalent Apple device?

Why should we expect differently just because Qualcomm says so?
Click to expand...
No one should be making up their minds about performance based on such little data. Real word performance using software people actually use is the only thing that matters. Synthetic benchmarks only provide a small amount of data.
 
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Reading between the lines, probably Samsung designed for passive cooling and the chip needs active cooling for laptop performance, the good thing is that Qualcomm actually have a design with laptop performance, but laptop power consumption/heat levels, which for me it's okay. I'm puzzled by the news that Arm is pursuing them for using the ISA (ALA) license from Nuvia which they bought a few years ago. I hope it goes the way of Qualcomm because that move from Arm sound more leech than tech wise.
 
Squid Surprise said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has Qualcomm EVER been able to surpass the benchmarks of the equivalent Apple device?

Why should we expect differently just because Qualcomm says so?
Click to expand...
Qualcomm acquired Nuvia and their ARM license to develop custom silicon like what Apple is doing versus using off the shelf Cortex cores.
 
Two important points here:
- Geekbench is meaningless - it is not a true performance comparison at all.
- Its too early to judge anything, wait for fixes to be rolled out.
 
I don't actually think SD elite will be able to beat the Apple contender but I'm happy that they are at least competing. We should take this as a "zen1 moment" for ARM chips that compete vs Apple ones. The next revisions could be much better who knows.
 
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I know Techspot won't update this, but the user said it didn't ship with official drivers and that the real ones come out next week with official launch. Maybe Samsung or Qualcomm should've shipped the drivers the same time they decided to ship a product.
 
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Squid Surprise said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has Qualcomm EVER been able to surpass the benchmarks of the equivalent Apple device?

Why should we expect differently just because Qualcomm says so?
Click to expand...

Because they've spend a ton on research and apple doesn't perform miracles. Their hardware is not automatically others performance + 2.
 
darkeasterbunny said:
Because they've spend a ton on research and apple doesn't perform miracles. Their hardware is not automatically others performance + 2.
Click to expand...
They don't perform miracles... they just handily outperform Qualcomm every year... not sure why anyone thinks they're gonna surpass them now...
 
Squid Surprise said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has Qualcomm EVER been able to surpass the benchmarks of the equivalent Apple device?
Click to expand...
Better question: Why should we care if Apple's SOC performs marginally higher than Qualcomm's?

As long as the performance does the job well and is priced right, it's going to be a good thing. Who cares if Apple is ahead, it's not by much and it will not come with Apple's well overinflated price tag..
 
Just release the god damned product so we can get independent benchmarks. Absolutely pathetic effort from Qualcomm that has been drip feeding so-called benchmarks touting it as the fastest thing around and now despite the hype and delays it now requires an emergency patch. I call BS, they've had a metric crap ton of time to polish this chip and this is what we are getting, nothing like the BS performance numbers they have posted.

Hands down Strix point will obliterate it IMO in most tests, AI will be closer though as AMD's total TOPS will be similar to Qualcomms.
 
ZedRM said:
Better question: Why should we care if Apple's SOC performs marginally higher than Qualcomm's?

As long as the performance does the job well and is priced right, it's going to be a good thing. Who cares if Apple is ahead, it's not by much and it will not come with Apple's well overinflated price tag..
Click to expand...
It’s not “priced right” though - it’s gonna be $2,000 or so… so if it isn’t performing on par with Apple, why would you want it?
 
Squid Surprise said:
There are plenty of Windows tablets/laptops available…. Why must you have the Samsung?
MS Surface lineup exists… not to mention any decent gaming laptop outperforms all of these options
Click to expand...
I thought you spoke of the SD Elite laptops in general compared to Apple's laptops. Ie. why not get an Apple machine instead.
The new ARM based machines should have much better performance/watt, as does Apples machines compared to x86-x84 windows machines.
Some people are in a work situation, where they need to use a Windows OS rather than MacOS (myself included) Hope that clarifies my response. :)
 
Crunch said:
I thought you spoke of the SD Elite laptops in general compared to Apple's laptops. Ie. why not get an Apple machine instead.
The new ARM based machines should have much better performance/watt, as does Apples machines compared to x86-x84 windows machines.
Some people are in a work situation, where they need to use a Windows OS rather than MacOS (myself included) Hope that clarifies my response. :)
Click to expand...
No…. If you want an ARM Windows machine, I suppose the Samsung is probably your best bet… although the ARM Surface will probably give it a decent run for its money…

But if you must have the best performing laptop - and it must be portable (ie : not gaming laptop ) then either Apple or Dell probably have this beaten - as will the Surface… and their performance/watt is pretty good.
 
This post immediately reminded me of that Linus Tech Tips video on this. Was super overhyped. How much did Qualcomm pay him, I wonder.
 
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