Qualcomm is making a move for the mid-range PC market with a new system-on-chip.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon X, the latest chip in its Snapdragon X series of PC processors. The company claims the chip, built on a 4nm fabrication process, delivers up to “multi-day” battery life. of battery and strong performance at an affordable price.
There are still some software compatibility issues to be resolved with Windows on Qualcomm’s chip architecture. However, that hasn’t stopped the company from pushing ahead with new processors in an effort to win over rivals AMD and Intel.
Qualcomm has a long way to go: According to a recent industry report, Qualcomm captured just 0.8% of the PC market in Q3 2024.
The company said the Snapdragon X will power a range of Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft’s Windows 11 machines with AI-powered tools and apps, hitting the market in the first quarter and priced around $600. Packing Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU with 8 cores clocked at up to 3GHz, the Snapdragon X also has a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which is supposed to accelerate AI workloads.
Other highlights include Bluetooth 5.4 compatibility, Wi-Fi 7 support and the ability to power up to three external UHD (4K) monitors running at 60Hz. PC makers that adopt Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Platform, a new hardware reference program, will also get additional technologies like Qualcomm’s A/V suite and proprietary image processing.
Expect to see Snapdragon X in laptops from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo in the coming weeks.
“There are over 60 Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PC designs now available or in development,” wrote Peter Burns, senior director of product marketing at Qualcomm, in a blog post provided to TechCrunch last week. “(And in) 2024, we saw a remarkable 3X increase in native Windows apps for Snapdragon.”
Snapdragon comes to desktop
Qualcomm last year abruptly canceled its Windows-based mini PC, but the company said during CES that it will help bring desktops powered by its Snapdragon X Series processors to market in 2025.
Some of these desktops will come from Lenovo. The company’s new ThinkCentre neo 50q QC and IdeaCentre Mini x (1L, 10) both have Snapdragon X Series processors, albeit different SKUs. The ThinkCentre neo 50q QC comes with Snapdragon X Plus or Snapdragon X, depending on the configuration, while the IdeaCentre Mini x (1L, 10) has Snapdragon X Plus.
The Snapdragon X Plus was launched last spring, following the Snapdragon X Elite in October 2023. Qualcomm introduced a less powerful and cheaper variant of the X Plus in September.
“Mini and small desktop PCs mark an important milestone in our PC journey,” Burns wrote. “Developers building Windows applications on Snapdragon desktops can now take advantage of new design options and unprecedented power efficiency, enabling them to create more efficient and powerful applications with NPU-accelerated features.”
