Source: Wall Street See News Author: Huang Yu
According to the original test data from Geekbench, the multi-core performance score of Qualcomm's 12-core Snapdragon X Elite chip is higher than Apple's 8-core M3 chip in the MacBook Air, but M3 still remains undefeated in single-core performance. This means that in many tasks, Apple's M3 processing speed is still faster, and M3 is also more power-efficient than X Elite.
With the release of Microsoft's AI PC new products, Surface Pro and Surface Laptop this week, the performance evaluation of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite series ARM chips is also available now.
The opponent in this comparison with Snapdragon X is Apple's MacBook Air M3 chip.
According to preliminary test data from 9to5mac, the multi-core performance of the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite chip is higher than that of the 8-core M3 chip in the MacBook Air, but M3 is still unbeatable in single-core performance. This means that in many tasks, M3 still has a faster processing speed, and the M3 chip is also more power-efficient than X Elite.
The energy efficiency test of the chip is more complicated because the test environment and specific chips need to be considered, especially the different versions of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip with different running speeds. However, according to a test by NotebookCheck, the power consumption of the X Elite 78 when running Cinebench is about 14W, while M3 is 10W.
Looking at the raw test data from Geekbench:
The single-core performance score of the Snapdragon X Elite onboard the new Microsoft Surface Pro is about 2800, and the multi-core performance is about 14300.
The M3 single-core score of MacBook Air far exceeds 3000, and the average multi-core score is about 12000, which is about 20% lower than Surface.
Although Microsoft and Qualcomm have always liked to use MacBook Air as a reference for their new products on public marketing occasions, in terms of kernel quantity and energy efficiency characteristics, Snapdragon X Elite is closer to Apple's M3 Pro chip in MacBook Pro.
If the normal power consumption of Snapdragon X Elite is compared with M3 Pro, the multi-core benchmark test score of the latter is likely to be comparable to or even higher than Snapdragon X Elite.
In addition, Apple products have already begun to transition to M4, so the M3 chip has become a bit "old". In May, Apple released a new iPad Pro with an M4 chip, both single-core and multi-core performance scores of which exceeded Snapdragon X Elite in Geekbench, and it is also a fanless tablet. The MacBook Pro with M4 chip is expected to start shipping at the end of this year, and it cannot be underestimated for its competitiveness.
Overall, since Apple introduced the M1 chip in 2020, the performance and battery life of Apple laptops are still dominant, but Qualcomm's new generation of ARM chips for AI PC has greatly narrowed the gap. With the launch of the new series Copilot+ PC, the Windows laptop market has also become a rival on par.
Editor/Lambor