A hot potato: Qualcomm hyped up its new Snapdragon X Elite processor as a game-changer for Windows PCs, promising performance that could even take on Apple’s mighty M-series chips. But if the first reviews of X Elite-powered laptops are to be believed, it looks like Qualcomm may have oversold its new baby.
One Reddit user, u/caponica23, shared a disappointing review of the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge laptop packing the X Elite chip. After running benchmarks like GeekBench and CrystalDiskMark along with some subjective battery and gaming tests, the results were… not great.
The GeekBench scores, which test CPU performance, came in at 1,829 for single-core and 11,379 for multi-core while on battery power. Plugged in, it barely inched up to 1,841 and 11,537, respectively. Those numbers are way below what Qualcomm itself demoed at press events, where they flaunted scores of 2,977 single-core and 15,086 multi-core.
Understandably, the pitchfork-wielding mobs are out in full force. One furious user highlighted on X/Twitter how the Galaxy Book4 Edge’s single-core score doesn’t even beat the ancient iPhone 12 mini from 2021.
For those who can’t comprehend how f*cking miserable this is, X Elite’s actual big core performance is slower than the 4-year-old A14 chip in the iPhone 12 mini.
Qualcomm initially inflated the single-core score to 3200, which dropped to 2900 in an actual Windows environment,… pic.twitter.com/SFxk8sEMZm
– INIYSA (@lafaiel) June 13, 2024
It’s not like these results are anomalies, either – the user found multiple other Galaxy Book4 Edge benchmarks on the app scoring around the same disappointing 1,800 range. Their theory is that Samsung intentionally limited the CPU clock speeds to avoid heat and battery life issues.
Circling back to u/caponica23’s review, gaming wasn’t much better initially, with Resident Evil Village experiencing “severe frame drops.” However, a fresh update has fixed that as the user pointed out with an update to the original post. The game now plays at 60-100 FPS on the same settings with no frame drops, which is quite an impressive feat if true. Touching 100 FPS on a game as demanding as RE Village is gaming laptop territory.
Sadly, that update doesn’t do anything about the abysmal benchmark scores, with the same user noting that CPU speeds do not exceed 2.52 GHz – well below the promised 4.0 GHz boost clocks. But considering that Samsung is actively optimizing the system further, as they did with the latest update, there’s a good chance this problem will also be fixed.
There are also claims that battery optimization is handcuffing the chip’s performance out of the box. The Galaxy Book4 Edge apparently lasted over ten hours on a charge, though that’s still short of MacBook Air levels.
The jury’s out on whether Qualcomm’s grand claims for the X Elite will hold up with the review embargo still in place. If Samsung doesn’t address the issues on time, it could get ugly for Qualcomm and its new flagship Windows chip.
