The Snapdragon X Elite performance numbers that nearly everyone has seen would likely present an impression that Qualcomm has finally developed a capable ARM-based SoC that delivers some much-needed competition to Apple Silicon. Unfortunately, that would have been the case if the San Diego chip giant had not allegedly manipulated benchmarks. One report says that the benchmark claims are impossible to recreate for Qualcomm’s partners that will eventually use the Snapdragon X Elite in various notebook models.
Some OEMs are rumored to have reported numbers that are ‘far sub-50%’ of what Qualcomm claims
Two ‘major’ OEMs and a ‘deep source at Qualcomm’ allegedly informed SemiAccurate that they could not reproduce the same benchmarking results of the Snapdragon X Elite that the company showcased. Additionally, some OEMs saw numbers that are ‘far sub-50%’ of what Qualcomm is claiming. When the chipset manufacturer was questioned about this performance disparity, the company’s engineers blamed the poor optimization of Windows running on the ARM silicon, coupled with sub-par cooling.
“So what are they cheating on? The short version is that the numbers that they are showing to the press and are not achievable with the settings they claim. Qualcomm is showing a different set of numbers to OEMs and these also are not achievable with the settings they claim. This information comes from two tier 1 OEMs and other sources. (Note to Qualcomm: No it wasn’t him, really, we knew long before last week) SemiAccurate is 100% confident in saying that some of the numbers Qualcomm was showing off can not be reproduced with the settings they claim. More on it in a bit but first a little background.”
These OEMs managed to address the cooling bit, but even then, the Snapdragon X Elite underperformed compared to Qualcomm’s recent results. One anonymous source has compared the newest SoC to an Intel Celeron processor, suggesting that its performance is egregious. Then again, SemiAccurate did not bother to show the results obtained by these unnamed OEMs, but assuming that the first retail units do not perform as expected, Qualcomm’s reputation will be beyond tainted.
In a new leak, we reported the Snapdragon X Elite running in Microsoft’s upcoming Surface Laptop 6 outperforms Apple’s M3 in Geekbench 6’s multi-core results by 16 percent. However, Qualcomm’s flagship silicon continues to be slower than its newest competitor in the single-core run. Lenovo recently debuted its latest ARM-based Yoga Slim 7 14 and ThinkPad T14s running the Snapdragon X Elite. Like the Chinese notebook maker, other brands will have their versions prepared later in the year, and if the results are skewed compared to what Qualcomm marketed, we will update this information accordingly.
News Source: SemiAccurate
About the author: Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech's mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.
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