Qualcomm's latest foray into personal computer system-on-chip designs, the Snapdragon X family, has been with us for more than a year now. It started with a small handful of Snapdragon X Elite chips and a single X Plus model, later expanding to nine different chips in the line.
The chipmaker is now releasing the second generation, the Snapdragon X2. With the first-gen chipsets, we were treated to laptops with long battery life and performance that exceeded expectations. (The Asus Zenbook A14, HP Omnibook X 14 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 are great examples of what's possible.) Products with the new chips will start shipping in 2026, but for now, here's what we know about how they compare to the existing Snapdragon X chips.
Snapdragon X2 specs
Oryon CPU cores CPU total cache CPU max multithread frequency CPU dual-core boost frequency GPU GPU clock speed Hexagon NPU (INT8 TOPS) Memory Type Memory Bus Width Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-96-100 18 (12 Prime + 6 Performance) 53 MB 4.4GHz (Prime), 3.6GHz (Performance) 5.0GHz X2-90 1.85GHz 80 LPDDR5x-9523 192-bit Snapdragon X2 Elite X2E-88-100 18 (12 Prime + 6 Performance) 53 MB 4.0GHz (Prime), 3.4GHz (Performance) 4.7GHz X2-90 1.7GHz 80 LPDDR5x-9523 128-bit Snapdragon X2 Elite X2E-80-100 12 (6 Prime + 6 Performance) 34 MB 4.0GHz (Prime), 3.4GHz (Performance) 4.7GHz (single-core), 4.4GHz (dual-core) X2-85 1.7GHz 80 LPDDR5x-9523 128-bit
Like the prior generation, just the upper end of the Snapdragon X2 family will be available at first. Some of the differences between the X2 and the original generation are immediately apparent.
Where the Snapdragon X line had CPUs consisting of eight to 12 identical cores, the Snapdragon X2 family opts for a hybrid architecture that combines two different core types. Qualcomm calls them Prime and Performance cores. We've seen similar designs in Qualcomm's phone chips for years. Intel has also used a similar approach with the Performance Hybrid architecture introduced in the 12th-gen Intel Core chips.
Qualcomm
This type of architecture aims to keep the faster Prime cores working on demanding tasks while letting lighter workloads and background tasks use the lower-power cores. Qualcomm's naming scheme here seems to be an attempt to make it clear that even its more efficient cores are still delivering high performance, hence the name. Just how well the different Snapdragon X2 Oryon Prime and Performance cores will stack up against the uniform Oryon cores in the first-generation chips remains to be seen.
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However, during the launch keynote, Qualcomm suggested there would be a considerable performance leap to the X2. It says the new cores can deliver 39% more single-core performance and, to deliver the same amount of performance as the first-generation cores at their peak, the new cores would require 43% less power. That efficiency jump is likely thanks to the shift from 4nm to 3nm process nodes. For the 18-core Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-96-100, Qualcomm is promising just a 50% increase in multithreaded performance over the last generation, though, which is curious given the chip also has a 50% increase in CPU cores.
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