Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme Reportedly Utilizes TSMC’s 3nm N3X Process To Reach Its Maximum Clock Speeds For The Best-Possible Performance, With Some Trade-Offs

The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Snapdragon X2 Elite were announced as Qualcomm’s first 3nm chipsets designed for laptops to deliver unrivaled performance from notebooks, with the company’s top-end 18-core SoC reaching up to 5.00GHz on a single or two cores. What was interesting about the official announcement was that San Diego didn’t divulge if its chipsets took advantage of TSMC’s 3nm N3E or the newer 3nm N3P node.

However, a fresh surprise in the form of a report is that the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is fabricated using the 3nm N3X process. This lithography has been developed with exceptional performance in mind, but that can result in a few compromises that we’ve discussed below.

Qualcomm prioritized the best possible performance for the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into the best efficiency, which TSMC’s 3nm N3X isn’t known for

A deep dive from Moor Insights & Strategy reveals some interesting specifications surrounding the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. Previously, we reported that Qualcomm’s latest and greatest SoC employs the SiP, or System-in-Package, which integrates multiple circuits and components such as RAM, storage, and other parts to form a single package.

It is similar to Apple’s unified RAM architecture, with the memory chips close to the CPU die ensuring increased memory bandwidth, which is why the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme’s most powerful variant can reach 228GB/s, making it higher than the M5, but lower than the 273GB/s memory bandwidth of the M4 Pro.

As for the manufacturing process, the report states that the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme utilizes the 3nm N3X node, making it the first time that a commercial chipset has moved away from TSMC’s 3nm N3P lithograph. The chipset also features 31 billion transistors, with the high-performance computing manufacturing process delivering a 5 percent performance uplift compared to 3nm N3P.

“Considering the platform at a high level, Qualcomm’s X2 Elite Extreme chip represents the company’s maximum effort at delivering the best performance for this generation. For example, a 192-bit memory bus, 128GB of memory, and 9523 MT/s RAM delivers up to 228 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which ensures that memory is not a bottleneck. Plus, the chip is built on TSMC’s N3X process node, totaling over 31 billion transistors.”

The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is also designed to operate at voltages higher than 1.0V, maximizing increased clock speeds and higher performance, albeit at the expense of lower density and efficiency compared to the 3nm N3P. Unfortunately, despite the 3nm N3X’s perks, Qualcomm’s top-end silicon continues to be slower than Apple’s M4 Max in Cinebench 2024’s single-core and multi-core benchmarks.

The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme can run beyond the 100W threshold when operating unconstrained, and a sustained 40W in specific laptop chassis, so it is surprising that the results are disappointing. Another area where the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme records a loss is in the GPU department, where the M4 Pro manages to be up to 45 percent faster in synthetic graphics-intensive benchmarks such as 3DMark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited and 3DMark Solar Bar Unlimited.

So far, Qualcomm’s move to the 3nm N3X process hasn’t paid the dividends that the company would like, but we’ve only had a glimpse at a couple of benchmarks, which don’t reveal the entire truth for the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. Hopefully, there will be some interesting results in the future, so stay tuned.

News Source: Moor Insights & Strategy

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