Qualcomm has officially launched the Snapdragon X Series as the “exclusive platform” for Microsoft Windows PCs with CoPilot+. The initial wave of devices powered by the Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors comprises twenty commercial and consumer systems in diverse form factors from seven major OEMs, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Samsung. These devices are available for preorder now and will begin shipping on June 18.
One of the standout features of the Snapdragon X Elite and Plus is the Hexagon Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which boasts up to 45 TOPs (Tera Operations Per Second), fastest in its class at present. The battery life and benchmark numbers for the processors look promising, with Qualcomm claiming that the Snapdragon X Elite delivers the highest NPU performance per watt for laptops, up to 2.6X compared to the Apple M3 and up to 5.4X vs the Intel Core Ultra 7, and up to 24 TOPS/watt peak performance.
Senior Qualcomm and Microsoft executives were naturally effusive about the collaboration between the two companies. Pavan Davuluri, Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices for Microsoft described the launch of Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series as “an inflection point for the Windows PC ecosystem” while Alex Katouzian, Group General Manager, Mobile, Compute & XR, Qualcomm Technologies, heralded “a new era for the PC” that will allow “users to push the boundaries of what’s possible across productivity, creativity, and entertainment.”
Although Qualcomm has got off to an impressive start with the launch of the Snapdragon X Series, its current exclusivity on the CoPilot+ PC will only last until Intel launches Lunar Lake in Q3 this year and AMD rolls out its next generation of AI PC platforms. That is when the fireworks will really start in what promises to be an extremely competitive market.
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