The Snapdragon Dev Kit was introduced by Qualcomm for developers at a price of $899, and it featured the company’s top-end silicon for Windows-powered machines, the Snapdragon X Elite. Given that the chipset takes advantage of processing cores based on ARM’s instruction sets and not the x86 architecture, power-efficiency would be its forte. Unfortunately, the Snapdragon X Elite displays extreme power-guzzling attributes when running inside the kit, as one developer points out when running a couple of tests, including Cinebench 2024.
Since Cinebench 2024 hammers the CPU, it was obvious that the Snapdragon X Elite would reach a higher power draw while running in the Snapdragon Dev Kit
Given that the Snapdragon Dev Kit is not a mobile machine and cannot function while being carried around, it would make sense for Qualcomm to let the Snapdragon X Elite operate at full tilt so developers gain access to the chipset’s entire performance envelope. Jeff Geerling, a developer, noticed this behavior when firing up Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024. The first benchmark revealed that the Snapdragon X Elite’s power draw was 80W, which is an acceptable range.
However, things take a different turn when running Cinebench 2024, as Geerling reports that the power draw was in the 99W-102W range. During the end of the benchmarking test, the Snapdragon X Elite obtained a single-core and multi-core score of 131 and 1,227. These figures show that the SoC can sip power like there is no tomorrow, but Geerling believes that Qualcomm might have deliberately done this so that the chipset can run at its maximum capabilities, giving developers full advantage of the hardware.
It is unlikely that the same Snapdragon X Elite running in ‘thin and light’ Windows notebooks would exhibit the same power consumption metrics as Qualcomm’s partners would attempt to find the right balance between performance and efficiency. As for how the Snapdragon X Elite fares against the M3 Pro and M3 Max, it appears that Apple has won in regards to ‘performance per watt.’
According to PersonSuitTV on Reddit, during a Cinebench 2024 test, the M3 Pro operating in the normal power mode consumed a total of 46W, making it less than half that of the Snapdragon X Elite. As for the M3 Max, running the same test on the 16-core CPU version saw a power spike of 87W, and as you already know, this Apple Silicon can effortlessly run circles around the Snapdragon X Elite.
News Source: Jeff Geerling
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