Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus chips target budget laptops with 80 TOPS NPU and multi-day battery

Qualcomm Brings Its Cheaper Snapdragon X2 PC Chips to CES

Qualcomm hasn't yet shipped the Snapdragon X2 Elite processors it announced at its annual Snapdragon Summit in September 2025 (they're expected by June), but at CES 2026 the company launched its lower-end Snapdragon X2 Plus parts, which are slated to appear in laptops by the end of March. These may be more popular than they might otherwise have been because stepping back on the CPU (which people expect to be paired with lower-end components and less memory and storage capacities) can be a valid way to whittle down the price of increasingly expensive laptops. Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source. Like their previously announced siblings, the X2 Plus parts are fabricated using a 3-nm process node, down from 4nm for the earlier Snapdragon X series generation; for comparison, Apple's M series has been on 3nm since the M3, as has AMD's Ryzen AI Max, while Intel's Panther Lake generation is using the company's 2-nm 18A process. Generally, the smaller the process the denser you can pack the chip, and the smaller distances signals need to travel -- one reason companies can eke out faster clock speeds -- but at the risk of greater heat. In addition to the new process size, the X2 Plus chips share a lot with the Elites, including the new 80 TOPS NPU AI accelerator (up from 45 TOPS) with support for the hot new FP8 data type, improved graphics, "multiday" battery life and other across-the-board performance improvements claimed by Qualcomm. Keep in mind that while Qualcomm has the fastest-rated PC chip NPU -- the Apple M5 has been estimated at 133 TOPS -- Qualcomm doesn't provide platform TOPS like Intel and AMD, so it's possible they may come out ahead for some types of AI operations. The chip launch seems like an aside among the company's other announcements at the show, which go hard on robotics, a huge, relatively nascent market that Qualcomm is trying to gain a foothold in. And going low-key on laptops is unsurprising since "budget" news is rarely big at CES, plus the component shortages, which are driving up the prices of consumer systems, are expected to choke sales and supply of the shiny new models.

Qualcomm's new chipset makes budget shopping for laptops a whole lot easier in 2026

The chip also features Wi-Fi 7 support, Snapdragon Guardian, and enhanced energy efficiency. In September 2025, Qualcomm unveiled its first next-generation laptop chipsets: the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, both designed primarily for high-end models. At CES 2026, the company expanded its 2026 roadmap by introducing the Snapdragon X2 Plus. Also: CES 2026 live updates: Biggest TV, smart glasses, phone news, and more we've seen so far If Qualcomm follows the same strategy as the previous generation, this is a new SoC (system-on-a-chip) designed to bring next-gen performance to midrange laptops rather than premium flagship machines. According to the developer, the chipset features a 10-core Oryon processor, an updated Adreno graphics card, and an 80 TOPS Hexagon NPU. All this is paired with LPDDR5x memory to deliver fast and efficient performance. There will also be a variant of the X2 Plus housing a 6-core CPU, offering laptop manufacturers another option for their affordable models. Early performance figures are promising. Qualcomm claims that the X2 Plus will offer a 35% increase in single-core CPU performance and a 17% increase in multi-core performance compared to the previous generation. The biggest jump comes from the NPU (neural processing unit). This one component is reportedly seeing 78% better AI performance, thus delivering a significant performance boost when needed. Also: The most exciting AI wearable at CES 2026 might not be smart glasses after all Energy efficiency remains a major advantage. Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon X2 Plus chipset will consume up to 43% less power than its predecessor. Based on past experience, I'm inclined to believe them. Last year, I tested the Acer Aspire 16 AI (as seen in the image above). It ran on the Snapdragon X chip, and it last 17 hours on a single charge. Whether the X2 Plus can maintain a similar endurance in light of added demand remains to be seen, but Qualcomm's track record suggests it's possible. Improved GPU performance is another notable upgrade, potentially making Snapdragon-powered laptops a lot more capable for heavy workloads like video editing and light 3D rendering. While it won't replace a dedicated GPU, it could narrow the gap. Also: I tested the two best Android flagship phones of 2025 - and the winner is not so obvious Additional features for the Snapdragon X2 Plus include support for Wi-Fi 7, which will become handy to have as the new connection standard rolls out more widely, along with Snapdragon Guardian for robust security. It'll protect PCs against malware and enable certain features such as biometric authentication and automatic presence detection. Qualcomm hasn't shared a specific launch date for laptops running on the Snapdragon X2 Plus, but if the release pattern follows the Snapdragon X2 Elite, expect the first models to arrive within the next six months.

Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon X2 laptops are here -- and they brought a new friend

In September, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, the laptop chips that, it claimed, would be "the fastest and most efficient processors for Windows PCs." They might finally give Intel and AMD a run for their money. Now, CES 2026 is bringing us the first actual laptops based on both that silicon and the Snapdragon X2 Plus -- a pair of just-announced chips aimed at more budget machines. PCs with the X2 Elite and ones with the X2 Plus should both arrive around the end of the first quarter, Qualcomm spokesperson Cassandra Garcia-Bacha tells The Verge. Qualcomm isn't promising particular price points like it did in 2024, when it proclaimed it'd bring the cost of a Snapdragon X laptop down to $700 -- which makes sense, I suppose, as the global RAM shortage currently has PC prices in flux. You'll have to watch this week as various PC makers do -- and don't -- announce those prices themselves. But Qualcomm senior director Mandar Deshpande tells me that Snapdragon X2 products are "trying to land in similar swim lanes" to the previous generation, whose "Elite" tier started at $1,000, "Plus" at $800, and "X" at $600 and up. While the Plus chips won't have quite the power of the X2 Elite, it sounds like they're no slouch. Though the 10-core and 6-core variants have fewer CPU cores than the Elite (which boast 18 and 12, respectively), Qualcomm claims they can still wipe the floor with a competing low-power Intel Lunar Lake or Arrow Lake chip in both CPU performance and efficiency: And for AI tasks, they still contain the same 80 TOPS NPU as Qualcomm's higher-end chips. It claims they're "the world's fastest NPU for laptops in its class": That said, the Plus won't have nearly as much GPU for gaming and other graphical tasks. Overall, Qualcomm says you're looking at up to 35 percent CPU gains and up to 39 percent GPU gains over a previous-gen chip, depending on whether you're looking at the 10-core or 6-core model, and we liked the Snapdragon X Plus-powered 12-inch Microsoft Surface Pro, as one example. Twenty-nine or 39 percent GPU gains might sound respectable, but it may not be enough to make these good for gaming, and it's nothing compared to the 2.3x gains Qualcomm boasts for the Elite -- and the 6-core chip has dramatically lower GPU frequency than even the 10-core chip, at just 0.9GHz versus 1.7GHz. Qualcomm does say the Plus requires up to 43 percent less power than the previous gen, though, with "multi-day battery life," and promises they won't drop performance when you're on battery. And even the Plus can support up to 128GB of LPDDR5x memory, not that manufacturers are likely to bite in this RAM economy! If you plan to game with a Qualcomm + Windows laptop, you'll be pleased to hear the company says it's ramping up graphics driver support. It's not promising day-and-date updates for each hot game as they launch, but Deshpande says Qualcomm is currently pledging quarterly driver updates and already supports some 1,400 games, covering 90 percent of "the most played game titles." Its Snapdragon Control Panel app should automatically keep GPU drivers up to date, and the drivers should natively support DX 12.2 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenCL 3.0. While Deshpande says both the Plus, like the Elite, can scale to most any wattage for a wide range of designs -- remember, portable performance is about cooling as much as or more than the chip -- he says most should fall in the 12-35W envelope of traditional thin-and-light laptops, there may be some fanless designs, and we might see mini PCs that add an additional 10W of headroom for extra performance, too. Qualcomm won't talk about operating systems other than Windows (say, SteamOS) or Windows on Arm handhelds today, though. There's "a lot of interest on other operating systems, we're looking at that, we're working on developing some of those solutions and everything, but CES is not the time we're announcing support," says Deshpande. But there is one hint: We should keep an eye on the 2026 Game Developers Conference for potential Windows handhelds, Garcia-Bacha tells me. GDC 2026 will run March 9th to 13th.

Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon X2 Plus Chips for Mainstream Laptops: Here Are the First Test Numbers

John has been a tech journalist for 30+ years covering PC hardware -- from the 386SX to 64-core CPUs -- as an editor, a writer, and a columnist. LAS VEGAS -- We haven't seen any actual laptops on the market yet based on Qualcomm's top-shelf X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme processors, which the mobile chip giant unveiled last fall at its 2025 Snapdragon Summit. (We expect to see more than a few at CES 2026, though.) When they show up, however, those second-generation Elite flagship chips are resolutely bound for laptops with four-figure prices. At CES 2026, Qualcomm is rolling out a new set of next-generation X2 processors, dubbed Snapdragon X2 Plus, which the company says will power more affordable laptops. In a closed-door benchmarking session, we received an early look at the chips' processing potential, much like we previewed the performance of their higher-end X2 Elite Extreme counterparts a few months back. Here's how the X2 Plus shapes up. The Two Flavors of X2 Plus The Snapdragon X2 Plus will be available in two versions: a 10-core chip, and a six-core one. Much like the original Snapdragon X Plus, these highly integrated processors (technically SoCs, or "systems on a chip") are designed for laptops starting around $800; X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme chips are likely to appear in models priced at $1,200 and above. Both varieties of the Snapdragon X2 Plus are rated for the same 4.0GHz peak multi-threaded frequency on the CPU cores, which, like other Snapdragon X2 chips, are based on Qualcomm's third-generation "Oryon" CPU architecture. The neural processing units (NPUs, which Qualcomm dubs "Hexagon") used here are rated for the same 80 trillion operations per second (TOPS) as the other Snapdragon X2 chips Qualcomm has detailed so far. That's well in excess of the 45 TOPS of the first-generation Snapdragon X family, and more on-SoC TOPS than any other consumer chip line we've seen to date. For most users, the most consequential difference between the Snapdragon X2 Plus and the X2 Elites above it, of course, will be in the number of cores (10 or six cores with the X2 Plus, versus 18 or 12 with the X2 Elites), but the 10-core model (X2P-64-100) has 34MB of total cache, while the six-core X2P-42-100 has only 22MB. The other key difference is in the integrated graphics. Both X2 Plus chips use the same Adreno X2-45 integrated GPU, but the 10-core chip is clocked much higher, at 1.7GHz, than the 0.9GHz on the six-core. Here's a detailed breakdown of the two new X2 Plus chips' specs, alongside the other three Snapdragon X2 Elite and Elite Extreme processors announced late last year... You can read a lot more about the nitty-gritty of Snapdragon X2 in our report from Snapdragon Summit this past fall, detailing the X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme. Many of the details remain constant across the line: support for the optional new Snapdragon Guardian enterprise management and protection features, Wi-Fi 7 readiness, and the option for 5G WWAN connectivity, should the system maker opt for it in a given design. Qualcomm's Comparison Claims So Far In a moment, we'll take a peek at a couple of the key summary slides from an introductory presentation about Snapdragon X2 Plus that Qualcomm gave us in the run-up to CES. Qualcomm put forth a bunch of claims around the X2 Plus' relative performance versus its Snapdragon X predecessors, and against the rest of the field. Claims around AI performance figure heavily, given the much-boosted NPU versus the first-generation Snapdragon X, as well as versus the NPUs in key competing Intel and AMD chips. The near doubling of the NPU TOPS is proportionally reflected in Qualcomm's AI-related performance claims. In contrast, Qualcomm's comparisons regarding the Adreno integrated graphics are largely limited to the X2 Plus versus earlier Snapdragon X chips, which suggests less drastic gen-on-gen improvements here. We'll see if that's reflected in our test comparisons below. The slide above is the money slide, with the claimed boosts on CPU, GPU, and NPU performance versus the original X Plus. That said, straight-up comparisons between Snapdragon X and X2 aren't clear-cut: Qualcomm had two versions of its equivalent 10-core Snapdragon X Plus (one with a single-core CPU boost feature, one without), and two eight-core Snapdragon X Plus chips. (There was no six-core X Plus.) More intriguing are the slides around X2 Plus 10-core versus some current-gen Intel and AMD mainstream CPUs for ultraportables. Qualcomm cites Geekbench scores here; let's look at the multi-core version of that test... The big takeaway in the spaghetti chart above is superior performance-per-watt for the Snapdragon X2 Plus as platform power increases versus these AMD and Intel competitors. As the performance curve starts to flatten, the AMD and Intel entries here are consuming a good bit more power than the X2 Plus. What that means: If this bears out in the real world, OEMs could in theory implement the X2 Plus in thinner and lighter designs to achieve a given power level--or get more efficiency at a particular performance level and thus achieve better battery life. In short, laptop designers get more flexibility. A First Look at Snapdragon X2 Plus Performance (With a Big Proviso) Like when we were first shown the X2 Elite Extreme a few months back, Qualcomm gave a group of press limited access to a host of reference systems built around the chips. Like before, the models were all identical, and all were equipped with a set of pre-installed benchmark programs and applications selected by Qualcomm. Qualcomm supplied the same regimen of programs with the X2 Plus as it did with the X2 Elite Extreme, so we had a big, ready bank of comparable data points from a host of sibling and competing systems that we tested independently in our labs. We've mapped them out in our charts below. We had the opportunity to run these tests with our own hands, but only under the watchful eyes of Qualcomm PR representatives; there was no chance to install apps of our own, or to run tests "off script." So take the numbers presented below with a big grain of salt, as we suggested when we got the same preview of the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. They're legit numbers, but surely cherry-picked to show the X2 Plus in the best possible light. Likewise, the reference laptop. The fire-engine-red laptops that Qualcomm used for the performance demonstration are unbranded models but likely engineered to let the X2 Plus spread its wings. As Qualcomm has pointed out multiple times in the past, it does not dictate thermal design power (TDP) ranges for its chips but allows its system-making partners that adopt its chips to implement Snapdragon X as it sees fit. A chip might be incorporated into a larger laptop design, with more robust cooling, allowing it to run harder and hotter for longer. Or it might end up in a smaller, more thermally constrained chassis, and power-limited accordingly. It all comes down to what the laptop maker is trying to achieve. In this case, we're reasonably certain that the laptop design was specified to showcase the X2 Plus in its best light. The choice of chip, too, follows the same logic; the reference machines were all outfitted with the 10-core variant, not the six-core. The table below shows the basic specs of the models we will be comparing the X2 Plus to... Note: The X2 Plus reference laptop features a 14.5-inch screen, which is actually much smaller than the 16-inch screen used in Qualcomm's X2 Elite Extreme reference units. The 32GB of RAM is competitive with much of the pack, though truth be told, we wouldn't be surprised if, with the cost of RAM having skyrocketed in recent months, the kinds of laptops that will feature the X2 Plus end up with 16GB or even 8GB when the time comes. CPU Performance Tests Let's start with a look at the X2 Plus through the lens of Maxon's Cinebench 2024 CPU rendering stress test and the GeekBench Pro productivity suite.... The X2 Plus' single-core performance on the Cinebench test was quite good, topped in this field only by the X2 Elite Extreme and the Apple M4 chip in the 2024 Apple MacBook Pro. It outpaced the various Intel "Arrow Lake," AMD Ryzen AI 300, and Ryzen AI Max+ 300 entries in our comparison set, as well as the Intel "Lunar Lake" Core Ultra 200V sample system. The multithreaded version of the Cinebench test also showed some promising performance, with the X2 Plus 10-core coming within about 10% of the workhorse Intel Core Ultra 9 285H and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 375. We would have pegged the X2 Plus as something closer to a Ryzen 7 or Core Ultra 7. It's especially impressive, given that the Intel 285H is a robust H-class processor, not a U-series or V-series processor. We saw the same relative placement of the Snapdragon X2 Plus in the pack on the Geekbench Pro single-core test. The multi-core trial, meanwhile, was the X2 Plus' best showing so far: It actually outran the Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 375 and was within the margin of error of the Apple M4. The Intel 285H fared much better here. This would be a good time to stress a key caveat: The X2 Plus is a reference model, whereas most of the other machines here (with the exception of the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme sample) are retail-ready, commercially available models. The X2 Plus looks good so far, but remember that these are selected tests in a (presumably) optimized chassis to showcase the processor in its best light. Graphics Performance Tests The graphics tests highlighted by Qualcomm were two subtests within the commonly used UL 3DMark synthetic suite. The Steel Nomad Light test is a moderate-lift gaming-graphics simulation designed for the types of mainstream laptops that the Snapdragon X2 Plus is expected to appear in. The 3DMark Solar Bay test, meanwhile, is a ray-tracing aptitude test that is more relevant for gaming machines, but it shows the ability of the integrated graphics processor (IGP) on the CPU to handle demanding ray-tracing tasks. Here, the X2 Plus fared less well than it did on the CPU-core drag races. In Steel Nomad Light, the Adreno GPU in the X2 Plus was roughly in line with the Intel Arc Graphics on its Arrow Lake H chip here. It was behind the Ryzen AI 9's integrated Radeon 890M and the Intel Lunar Lake 268V's Arc integrated graphics, both a little less than 10% ahead of the X2 Plus. With the 3DMark Solar Bay ray-tracing-focused test, the AMD and Intel competitors opened up a little more daylight between themselves and the X2 Plus. The only machines in this competitive set that came in behind the X2 Plus were Qualcomm's own original X1 Elite chips, employing an earlier version of the Adreno IGP. Browser Performance Tests As real-world laptop performance measures, we don't put a whole lot of stock in browser tests that process JavaScript and the like. With modern processors beyond the entry-level, these kinds of workloads should be a relative piece of cake. Still, we'll serve up the numbers from the Speedometer and JetStream browser benches. These tests measure how the test system handles under-the-surface tasks for web browsing and other, similar operations. These tests are primarily useful for comparison purposes between systems, and less so for absolute values that provide insight into the actual usage experience. On JetStream, the differences among the X2 Plus, Intel, and AMD chips were largely inconsequential. Speedometer, however, saw the X2 Plus ahead of most of the pack by a meaty margin, as much as 30% in many cases. Only the X2 Elite Extreme and Apple M4 topped it in our test set. AI Performance Tests As we noted in our preview of the X2 Elite Extreme, AI benchmarking is in its early days and vastly multifaceted, so any given AI test usually gives you just a small-slice, semi-opaque view of what AI performance is. This is especially the case here, as Qualcomm selected the tests. We're limiting our AI comparison to the first-gen Snapdragon X Elite (with its 45 TOPS NPU) and the X2 Plus and the X2 Elite Extreme (both with 80 TOPS NPUs). We think we can predict the outcome of this one... Geekbench AI was run on the ONNX AI framework. It runs a series of machine-learning workloads across three data types (outlined in the results above) and presents scores for each. UL's Procyon AI's Computer Vision test, meanwhile, was run using Qualcomm SNPE. Because AI benchmarking is such a new field, we haven't fully vetted Procyon AI's other settings on other platforms; thus, we don't feel comfortable comparing results from it with other platforms and frameworks without introducing a lot of caveats. Single-precision data saw the X2 Plus take last place in our test set on Geekbench AI (likely unable to fully engage the NPU), but the results at the half-precision and quantized settings are more in line with the 80 TOPS NPU also seen in the X2 Elite Extreme. The scaling from the 45 TOPS NPU in the original X Elite and the X2 Plus' near-doubled one is reflected close to 1:1 in those two scores. We saw the same dynamic play out in the Procyon Computer Vision test. The Takeaway: X2 Plus Will Come Down to Implementations We're intrigued that Qualcomm showed off its X2 Plus in a 14.5-inch reference model rather than the 16-inch chassis it used for its X2 Elite Extreme exhibition last fall. In part, that's a likely reflection of the PCs this chip will show up in. But it's also a mark of confidence in the Snapdragon X2 Plus to let it run free in what will probably be closer to its natural habitat. That said, the appeal and impact of the X2 Plus will come down to adoption and implementations. If Qualcomm can get the X2 Plus into enough design wins under $1,000, we can see this as an attractive mainstream contender in a market that will see plenty of upheaval in the first half of 2026. Intel's "Panther Lake" Core Ultra 300 series is imminent, and AMD is overdue for a refresh of its Ryzen AI 300 family of laptop chips. Plus, there's the 2025 announcement of Intel and Nvidia collaborating on "RTX CPUs," and Nvidia itself tipping the possibility of jumping into the CPU game itself. We're not sure yet when the Snapdragon X2 Plus might hit the streets in bona fide laptops, but for its sake, hopefully it's soon. By midyear, we could be looking at a very different market for laptops with new silicon from all the classic players--and maybe even some new ones. More to come when we get our hands on the first X2 Plus machines in the wild.

Qualcomm launches Snapdragon X2 Plus CPUs to battle Intel

Qualcomm is trying to become a major player in the laptop processor space. Its Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips, along with a concerted effort to improve the Windows on Arm software ecosystem, have made it a credible alternative to Intel and AMD, although it's still stuck at below 1% market share. On Monday at CES in Las Vegas, the company showed the next step in this strategy: the next-gen Snapdragon X2 Plus chips, which are targeted at budget and mainstream systems. Available in two SKUs - a 10-core model and a 6-core alternative - the Snapdragon X2 Plus boasts a maximum 4 GHz clock speed, support for high-speed LPDDR5x memory, and an NPU that achieves up to 80 TOPS (trillion operations per second) for local AI. Qualcomm claims that the new chips, based on a 3nm process, will provide multi-day battery life in laptops due to their improved power efficiency, requiring 43 percent less power than their immediate predecessors. The perf improvements come as a result of the more effective cores built into the main CPU. Qualcomm claims that its third-gen Oryon CPU cores are up to 35 percent faster at single-core tasks than the prior-gen Snapdragon X processors and 17 percent faster on multi-core tasks. Its Adreno GPU is 39 percent quicker at GPU tasks, and its Hexagon NPU is 78 percent more performant than those in the original Snapdragon X Plus line. In fact, in its own test of Geekbench 6.5 multi-core, Qualcomm claims that the X2 Plus 10-core chip is 52 percent more performant than Intel's current-generation processors at around 25 watts of platform power. No word on how it will stack up to Intel's upcoming Panther Lake CPUs, though. Qually's marketing team has really outdone themselves with this chart, which is clearly intended to make the X2 Plus look impressive. To our eyes, the line showing the 3.1x uplift in relative performance over the Core Ultra 7 265U is nearly the same size as the 52 percent uplift over Intel's 265V. Not sure why they felt the need to present the figures this way, since they actually look quite good. That said, we do know that Qualcomm's prior-gen Snapdragon X chips have offered some seriously low-power experiences. For example, when Tom's Hardware tested Lenovo's ThinkPad T14s with a Snapdragon X Elite chip inside, the laptop lasted through a whopping 21 hours of continuous web surfing, video playback, and 3D animation at 150 nits of brightness. The Snapdragon X2 Plus chips follow closely on the heels of Qualcomm's higher-end and more expensive Snapdragon X2 Elite chips, which were announced this past fall. Those processors are available in three SKUs, which range from 12 to 18 cores and carry a boost frequency up to 5 GHz, along with up to a 1.85 GHz GPU, and a generous amount of cache. The memory bandwidth on the highest end SKU, the X2 Elite Extreme, is higher, with a maximum speed of 228 GB/s versus 152 GB/s for the other two X2 Elite SKUs and the X2 Pluses. This could help with some local AI workloads where memory speed is critical. All of the Snapdragon X2 processors have the same 80 TOPS NPU, however. That means that any PC with a Snapdragon X2 chip will qualify as a Microsoft Copilot+ PC, and will get access to a handful of exclusive local Windows AI features including Microsoft's controversial Recall app and Windows Studio Effects, which does background blurring, auto framing, and other special effects using the NPU. Qualcomm has worked with a number of app publishers to build Snapdragon X hardware support into their AI-enhanced products. For example, reps showed us how Topaz Photo does picture enhancement tasks such as denoising and upscaling using a combination of the chip's NPU and GPU. They also showed a demo of a Nexa AI local LLM that uses the NPU to query data from folders on your local drive. As an example, a rep asked the software to find a GitHub password from a file on the laptop. We really hope Qualcomm doesn't actually store passwords in plain text. While Qualcomm has not disclosed pricing for systems based on the Snapdragon X2 Plus or Snapdragon X2 Elite chips - that will be determined by the OEMs that use them - we can guesstimate that those based on the X2 Plus will likely be just a little bit cheaper than configurations with the X2 Elite. That being said, right now, neither X2 chip is out and the price difference between last-gen X Plus and X Elite chips seems to be minimal - in fact, in some cases, systems with the better chip are cheaper. As of this writing, Microsoft is selling the Surface Pro (13-inch) with Snapdragon X Plus for $1,099, but the one with Snapdragon X Elite starts at $999. Lenovo.com actually charges $173 more to have a Snapdragon X Plus chip on a ThinkPad T14s than it does for an X Elite chip with more cores and higher clocks. Perhaps Microsoft and Lenovo are just cleaning out inventory, as we would expect the price differential to favor the lesser chip by at least $100 when the new models come out. Qualcomm has big ambitions for the entire Snapdragon X series and the software ecosystem that works with Windows on Arm. Since the original Snapdragon X laptops came out in 2024, there's been a surge in apps that run natively under Snapdragon, and most others run under emulation. Even though Snapdragon laptops are not sold as gaming machines, you can play a number of games on them, including Minecraft, Roblox, Fallout and GTA V. At Computex in June 2024, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon claimed that Arm-powered laptops would account for 50 percent of the Windows PC market within five years. (Qualcomm is currently the only Arm-powered Windows laptop CPU maker.) Five years haven't passed yet, but enterprises are not impressed so far, if sales numbers are any indication. According to analyst firm IDC, 153 million commercial PCs were sold worldwide between Q4 of 2024 and Q3 of 2025, but only a million of those, or 0.65 percent, were powered by Qualcomm chips. "There's a reluctance to change from the Enterprise side of things to going to Arm-based," IDC analyst Jean Philippe Bouchard told The Register in an interview. "Everyone is kind of geared towards x86." However, Bouchard pointed out that Qualcomm may see more business come its way both as a result of its long battery life and some helpful security features. Snapdragon X2 Elite chips will have Snapdragon Guardian, which allows IT departments to manage remote devices even if they are powered off and unbootable, using 5G or Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. "Tough to say what the future holds," Bouchard said. "But they're doing everything that they need to do right in terms of performance and in terms of future." ®

Qualcomm Unveils New Cheaper Version of X2 Laptop Processor

Qualcomm's processors are designed to provide notebook users with AI computers that react quicker to commands and can go longer before needing to be plugged into power. Qualcomm Inc., the biggest maker of mobile phone chips, said it's extending a push into the market for processors that are the heart of personal computers. Its new X2 Plus processor is a scaled-back version of existing offerings designed to be the main component of more affordable notebook computers. Qualcomm is offering two versions, one with 10 computer cores and one with six, the chipmaker said Monday in a statement. Those cores are the newer Oryon third-generation design. Among their biggest selling points, according to Qualcomm, is the inclusion of a powerful neural processing unit, or NPU, that'll speed up the responsiveness of AI software without rapidly depleting the battery. The company already offers the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Elite Extreme chips, which power laptops that usually cost $1,000 or more. Qualcomm said its processors provide notebook users with AI computers that react quicker to commands and can go much longer before needing to be plugged into the power than those based on rival chips. San Diego-based Qualcomm is making announcements at the CES trade show in Las Vegas where the specifications and claims around its new products will be measured against those from market incumbents Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which are also holding events. Qualcomm and Apple Inc. are pioneering the use of Arm Holdings Plc. technology in the computer market. Such designs are based on arrangements more typically found in mobile phones, which proponents argue means they're more suited to battery-powered devices. That overall push is gaining ground, but slowly. At the end of the third quarter such chips accounted for almost 14% of the PC market, according to Mercury Research. That was a slight expansion from the total it achieved in the previous period.

The Snapdragon X2 Plus promises to be way better than the previous gen

Hello! I'm the Content Director of XDA and MakeUseOf, and I've been reporting on all things consumer tech since 2013. More recently, I've had more of a focus on Windows, and I've reviewed pretty much every mainstream laptop under the sun. If you see me somewhere, come say hello and let me ask you awkward questions about why you use the tech that you use. It's CES 2026, which means all computing companies are coming out to show off their new wares. Qualcomm is among the first out of the gate with its Snapdragon X2 Plus chipsets, including 10-core and a 6-core variants. They're successors to the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core and Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, respectively, so yes, that lower-tier variant does have two fewer CPU cores. Still, Qualcomm is promising that they're better. "Modern professionals and creators want to do more, create more, and push the limits of generative AI and all-day performance. Snapdragon X2 Plus platform delivers the power, efficiency and intelligence to surpass their ambitions, making each experience more responsive and personal," said Kedar Kondap, SVP and GM of computing and gaming at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. They're supposed to be way better than Snapdragon X Plus Let's talk about performance improvements, because while I found the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core to be a solid product, I didn't quite feel that way about the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core when I reviewed the Asus Zenbook A14. On both variants of the Snapdragon X2 Plus, Qualcomm is promising a 35% boost in single-core performance and a 78% increase in NPU performance. There's no surprise there, since they both use the same CPU cores, and they both have the same 80 TOPS NPU that you'll find in the Snapdragon X2 Elite. And then, there's 17% better multi-core performance in the 10-core and 10% better multi-core performance in the 6-core, along with 29% better GPU performance in the 10-core and 39% better GPU performance in the 6-core. Notably, the comparison to last-gen is to the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core and 8-core, respectively, so the original 10-core chip actually had a much better GPU. The Snapdragon X Plus 8-core did struggle with GPU performance, so you're seeing a bigger increase there. This time around, both products use the same GPU, the X2-45, but clocked at 1.7GHz and 0.9GHz. However, for the previous generation, the Snapdragon X Plus 10-core actually had the same GPU part, the X1-85, as the Snapdragon X Elite. That's not the case this time. Both the Snapdragon X2 Plus 10-core and 6-core have six prime CPU cores, clocked at 4GHz, but the 10-core version has four additional performance cores. On top of that 35% gain in single-core CPU performance, Qualcomm is promising 43% lower power consumption, so battery life should be even better than before, and it was pretty great before. This isn't the biggest Qualcomm news from CES While this is one of the first news releases from the show, it feels supplemental to the news that's going to be coming later. And that, of course, is the actual products from laptop-makers. Subscribe for deeper Snapdragon and PC hardware coverage Looking for expert perspective? Subscribe to the newsletter for clear, expert analysis of Snapdragon X2 Plus impacts on laptop performance, NPU and GPU trade-offs, and how chipset launches influence OEM product decisions on PC hardware. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. We've known since Snapdragon Summit that Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme products are going to be announced at the show, and that's the stuff that's actually worth looking forward to. The announcement of the Snapdragon X2 Plus series is similar to if Intel announced Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 9 a few months ago, and then waited until partner announcements to show the Core Ultra 5. So yes, you're going to see Snapdragon X2 Elite products at CES, and they'll likely come with Snapdragon X2 Plus configurations. It's not likely that you'll see many products that max out at Snapdragon X2 Plus. Products using the Snapdragon X2 Plus and Snapdragon X2 Elite will be available in the first half of this year.

Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon X2 Plus chip at CES

CES tends to bring a wave of news from chipmakers, and Qualcomm has used this year's event to announce the Snapdragon X2 Plus laptop processor. This is a more modest version of the flagship Snapdragon X2 Elite chip that Qualcomm unveiled in September. The Snapdragon X2 Elite will be available in the coming generation of Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs and its integrated Hexagon NPU can deliver the 80 TOPS performance benchmark for powering artificial intelligence tasks. The chip is also equipped with a third-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU with either six cores or ten cores. For comparison, the Snapdragon X2 Elite gives options of either 12 or 18 cores. According to the company, this iteration of the CPU boasts up to 35 percent faster single-core performance compared with the previous generation. It also says the six-core model has up to 10 percent faster multi-core performance over the prior model, while the ten-core option has up to 17 percent better multi-core performance. Both versions of the Snapdragon X2 Plus come with an Adreno GPU that has improved performance up to 29 percent over the past iteration.

Meet Snapdragon X2 Plus, Qualcomm's push to make AI laptops affordable

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Plus processor has the same goal as its predecessor: to provide a slightly stripped-down, leaner alternative processor for midrange Windows on Arm laptops. But there's a slight difference. While last year's X Plus chip came in two flavors: a 10-core and an 8-core offering, Qualcomm is offering customers either a 10-core or 6-core Snapdragon X2 Plus chip instead. Qualcomm is eyeing Intel's Core Ultra 200-series chips as well as the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series as potential targets. Qualcomm's Plus series of processors essentially fill the same role as a Core i5: Qualcomm uses the same CPU architecture, plus the same GPU (adjusted for power, which lowers the speed) and the same NPU. But Qualcomm is being way more aggressive in terms of the performance comparisons. Eighteen months ago, Qualcomm was claiming that its X Plus chip offered 28 percent faster performance at the same power. This time, it claims that the top 10-core chip in the X2 Plus family delivers over three times the performance of the competition, the Core Ultra 7 265U. Qualcomm's first-generation Plus processors appeared in the Acer Swift 14 AI, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, and the Dell Latitude 7455, among others. The company will disclose more customers here at the CES show in Las Vegas. Executives said to expect the X2 Plus to land in the same price range as the X Plus, or devices costing about $799. Essentially, the mission of the X2 Plus is the same as Qualcomm's first generation, "to really get the same technology advantages to more and more users," said Mandar Deshpande, senior director of product management for the compute business at Qualcomm, in a press briefing with reporters. How fast is the Snapdragon X2 Plus? Officially, the two Snapdragon X2 Plus chips are known as the 10-core X2P-64-100 and the 6-core X2P-42-100, reflecting Qualcomm's impenetrable naming scheme. Typically, you'll see both chips referred to as the 10-core X2 Plus and the 6-core X2 Plus. The 10-core X2 Plus will run at speeds up to 4.0GHz, with an X2-45 GPU that Qualcomm hasn't disclosed the speeds of. The 6-core X2 Plus also runs at that same clock speed and features that same GPU as well. Both chips also include identical NPUs with 80 TOPS. Why six cores? Deshpande shrugged off the question. "Fundamentally, we're not really tied to core counts, frequencies, or [power]," he said. Qualcomm's current list of processors does not reflect the new additions, but you can see how they'll fit in: probably a touch below the older Snapdragon X Elite, and with similar specifications to the first-gen Snapdragon X Plus chips, at least on paper. Those chips also included an additional two processors with some variations in clock speed; Deshpande declined to comment when asked if Qualcomm would do the same with the X2 Plus. We also don't know the clock speeds of the GPUs. Though the Snapdragon X2 Plus and the Snapdragon X1 Plus look similar on paper, the numbers may be deceiving. Like the Snapdragon X2 Elite, the X2 Plus is built on updated third-generation Oryon CPU cores, which increase performance. While the Snapdragon X Elite included a pair of cores that could run at a faster "turbo speed" to accomplish high-priority tasks quicker, the X Plus did not, and the X2 Plus does not either. On the other hand, the X2 Plus base clock speed is as high as the turbo speed was in the X1 Plus, a Qualcomm representative noted. One of the key improvements for Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite was its inclusion of "performance" and "prime" cores, also tuned for high-performance work. Those, the X2 Plus has. The ten-core X2 Plus has six prime cores and four performance cores, while the six-core X2 Plus includes six prime cores, the representative added. Still, comparing the X1 Plus to the X2 Plus, performance improves significantly: 35 percent more single-threaded CPU performance, and up to 39 percent more GPU performance, using 43 percent less power. (Qualcomm used Geekbench and 3DMark's Steel Nomad tests for the comparisons.) Qualcomm is projecting significant gains over the other mobile processor platforms competing against it, which it classifies as some of Intel's Core Ultra 200 7-class processors as well as the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350. Like the Snapdragon X2 Elite, the X2 Plus chips run at full speed on battery power as well when the laptop is plugged in, a key differentiator from the competition. Naturally, Qualcomm is comparing itself to the existing "Lunar Lake" and "Strix Point" platforms from Intel and AMD; Intel has already announced its next-gen "Panther Lake" mobile platform, and AMD is expected to debut its "Gorgon Point" mobile platform at CES. None of these chips have shipped, however, so Qualcomm can't test against them. Qualcomm didn't quote any battery-life estimates for Snapdragon Plus notebooks; the company said that it is still working with customers to optimize those products. A big question mark continues to be the utility of the NPU, and how receptive applications partners and customers will be to using local AI on the PC. Since the X2 Plus includes the same 80 TOPS NPU as the X2 Elite, that will allow more NPU-powered features from Microsoft Windows, Da Vinci Resolve, and other apps to run simultaneously, much in the same way that a powerful CPU or GPU allows multiple apps to be run simultaneously. The chip's memory bandwidth is also up to 152Gbps, which gives enough headroom for LLMs. If and when an NPU-powered AI future comes to pass, Qualcomm will be ready. As far as games, Deshpande said that the company has tested 1,400 games on the Snapdragon platform, and that they're running "really good" -- where that means at 60Hz on a 1080p resolution. Microsoft published an update to its Prism emulator in mid-December, which provides some additional support. While Qualcomm is encouraging its partners to write native Arm code that can boost performance, the updated Prism emulator will allow a wider range of applications to simply run on Windows on Arm, without specifying exactly what. Qualcomm is exploring in other ways, too. "One thing now that we're working closely with the OEMs is really now innovating on the form factor front, right?" Deshpande said. "So we're trying to make the PCs thinner and lighter. We're looking at panelist devices. We're looking at desktops, which can be made more portable. So all of that form factor innovation is very exciting, and you should expect those types of devices coming in the market very soon."

Qualcomm announces Snapdragon X2 Plus CPUs at CES 2026 -- and it promises an 'epic' upgrade

Qualcomm has just announced its latest Snapdragon X2 Plus CPU at CES 2026, further expanding its lineup of Snapdragon X Series processors for upcoming laptops this year. The Snapdragon X2 Plus follows the same pattern as the tech giant's last-gen chipsets, being a step down from the already revealed Snapdragon X2 Elite (and X2 Elite Extreme). However, a significant jump in performance, battery efficiency and AI power compared to its predecessor. Just how much of an improvement? Thanks to the third-gen Qualcomm Oryon CPU with up to 10 cores offering up to a 35% faster CPU single-core performance, 43% better power efficiency for longer battery life and 80 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) in the Hexagon NPU, expect a boost in a wide range of mid-range laptops. Arriving in Copilot+ laptops in the first half of 2026, let's dive into what we know about the Snapdragon X2 Plus so far. Snapdragon X2 Plus: What we know Like the Snapdragon X2 Elite chips, the X2 Plus brings advanced performance to Arm-based laptops and aims to achieve multi-day battery life along with native built-in AI features. Think of the Plus as the mid-range to Elite's (and Extreme's) premium lineup. There are two models available: the Snapdragon X2 Plus X2P-64-100 and the Snapdragon X2 Plus X2P-42-100. The former comes with a 10-core CPU, while the latter sports a 6-core CPU. Here's a quick rundown of the specs and how they compare to their Elite counterparts: Impressively, the Snapdragon X2 Plus also features the same Wi-Fi 7 connectivity, integrated Adreno GPU (up to 1.7GHz) with a near-30% improvement over its predecessor and the same TOPs to make it the "world's fastest NPU for laptops." "Modern professionals and creators want to do more, create more, and push the limits of generative AI and all-day performance," says Kedar Kondap, SVP and GM of computing and gaming at Qualcomm." Snapdragon X2 Plus platform delivers the power, efficiency and intelligence to surpass their ambitions, making each experience more responsive and personal." That should bring a significant step up compared to the Snapdragon X Plus chip, and at a more affordable price than the Elite series. We can expect to see these chips in laptops arriving in 2026, and who knows, they may just make our list of the best laptops this year once we put them through their paces. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.

Qualcomm reveals Snapdragon X2 Plus chip with eyes on low-cost AI laptops

The third-gen Oryon cores offer a 35% speed boost while drawing 43% less power for superior battery life. Qualcomm just dropped a surprise at CES 2026 and it's pretty good news for consumers eyeing a laptop upgrade this year. Months after announcing the high-end Snapdragon X2 Elite and its Extreme variant, the company has just revealed the mid-tier Snapdragon X2 Plus silicon. A new lifeline for Copilot+ laptops The latest from Qualcomm employs the 3rd Gen Oryon CPU cores, which are touted to be 35% speedier while also drawing 43% less power. Simply put, more power and higher battery efficiency. Qualcomm is also raising the AI performance to 80 TOPS, nearly double compared to its first-gen Snapdragon X processors. Qualcomm says the NPU aboard its latest silicon can run over 50 AI workflows locally on the device. The processor will be offered in two variants. The 10-core model also offers a beefier GPU clocked at 1.7GHz, while the 6-core variant picks a slower graphics engine ticking at 0.9GHz. The beefier variant packs six prime cores going up to 4GHz and four performance cores. The low-end version only has six prime cores, touching the same peak frequency as its more powerful sibling. Fabricated on the 3nm process node, the Snapdragon X2 Plus silicon can handle 4K panels with up to 144Hz refresh rate and can also drive three panels at 4K resolution. Recommended Videos On the connectivity front, it bundles optional 5G, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth v5.4. The first wave of laptops powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Plus processor will land in the coming months bearing the Copilot+ badge. These laptops should ideally land in the $800 price bracket to challenge the MacBook Air and Apple's upcoming low-cost laptop with a mobile-grade A-series processor.

CES 2026: Qualcomm Introduces Snapdragon X2 Plus Chipset for Copilot+ PCs

* The Snapdragon X2 Plus is likely powered by an Oryon CPU * It offers 80 TOPS of NPU performance for AI workloads * The AI PC platform is available in 6-core and 10-core variants Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon X2 Plus chipset for Copilot+ PCs on Monday, right before the start of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026. The newest entrant in the Snapdragon X series processors for artificial intelligence (AI)-powered PCs comes with several upgrades in performance and power efficiency, and joins the X2 Elite system-on-chipset (SoC), which was launched in September 2025. The company said the chipset is designed for Windows laptops and 2-in-1 PCs that fall under Microsoft's Copilot+ PC category, which requires a minimum threshold of neural processing unit (NPU) performance for local AI inference. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Plus Platform Unveiled In a press briefing, the San Diego-based chipmaker stated that the Snapdragon X2 Plus chip will feature Qualcomm's third-generation Oryon CPU, paired with an NPU with up to 80 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of performance to handle complex AI tasks on the device. The first wave of consumer hardware using the chip is expected to arrive in early 2026. The Oryon architecture has been a mainstay since the company's first PC platform, Snapdragon X Elite, which was launched in 2024. Now, its third-generation architecture in the X2 Plus chip gets a custom-designed Arm-compatible core system that is tuned for low-power, sustained performance, rather than short burst workloads. The company did not reveal the core arrangement, clock speeds, or the cache sizes at the time of writing this. AI performance gets the biggest upgrade when compared to the predecessor. The Snapdragon X Plus SoC offered 45 TOPS of performance, but X2 Plus takes it to 80 TOPS with a dedicated NPU. This capability essentially highlights the amount of complex AI tasks that can be completed locally on-device, without having to rely on server-based compute. Qualcomm also claimed that the 10-core variant of the chipset gets 35 percent higher single-core CPU performance, 17 percent higher multi-core CPU performance, 29 percent more GPU performance, and 78 percent increased NPU performance when compared to 2024's X Plus platform. Without going into specifics, the tech giant also claimed that the Snapdragon X2 Plus offers multi-day battery life and advanced security.

Qualcomm Takes Massive Leap With New Snapdragon X2 Plus SoCs - Delivering the World's Fastest Laptop NPU In 10 & 6 Core Models

Qualcomm has unveiled its Snapdragon X2 Plus chip at this year's CES, and by the looks of it, the Windows on ARM (WoA) platform has become significantly more powerful. Qualcomm's New Snapdragon X2 Plus Chips Provide a Tough Competition to AMD's Strix Point & Intel's Lunar Lake The latest iteration of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Plus chip marks the company's efforts to make WoA devices accessible to consumers by offering top-tier specifications and performance. The San Diego chipmaker unveiled their latest Snapdragon X2 Plus at CES, showcasing two different variants: a 10-core version (X2P-64-100) and a 6-core version (X2P-42-100). Both chips are based on a 3nm process node like the rest of the X2 family. The Snapdragon X2 Plus CPUs retain the same X2-45 Adreno GPU, and feature up to 128 GB LPDDR5x memory capacities with up to 9523 MT/s speeds across a 128-bit bus for up to 152 GB/s bandwidth. More importantly, Qualcomm claims that the newer chips offer the world's fastest NPU platform on laptops with up to 80 TOPS of AI compute, taking edge AI workloads to a new level. Here is a rundown on specifications: The major performance gains have been achieved through Qualcomm's 3rd-generation Oryon CPU cores, along with the enhanced Hexagon NPU, which yields an incremental performance improvement over the previous generation. According to performance statistics shared by Qualcomm, you are looking at 35% higher single-core performance and 78% higher NPU performance compared to the Snapdragon X Plus series, all while maintaining 43% lower power requirements. The chips are targeted towards Microsoft's newer generation of Copilot+ PCs, which is why dominating power efficiency was a primary objective with the newer Snapdragon X2 Plus SoCs. Qualcomm has also compared the 10-core variant with AMD's 'Strix Point' Ryzen AI 7 350, which features 28% higher peak performance. When stacked up against Intel's 'Lunar Lake' Core Ultra 7 265U, the Snapdragon X2 Plus delivers 3.5 times higher performance at the same ISO power. The new Hexagon NPU places the X2 Plus chips ahead in benchmarking environments, such as the UL Procyon AI CV Score and Geekbench AI, surpassing AMD's Strix Point and Lunar Lake equivalents by up to 6.4 times. One of the major improvements showcased by Qualcomm with the Snapdragon X2 Plus platform is 'multi-day' battery life, although the chipmaker didn't disclose official figures. For the new Adreno GPU, Qualcomm claims up to a 29% performance uplift versus the previous gen while enabling support for the latest APIs and graphics innovations such as DX12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, OpenCL 3.0, Adreno High Performance Memory (HPM), and further ray tracing improvements. It is exciting to see Qualcomm advancing with its laptop SoCs, given that the company is currently the only option in the WoA segment, and it still manages to rival mainstream offerings from AMD and Intel. The Snapdragon X2 Plus SoCs are a step in the right direction when you factor in performance-per-watt figures, alongside the gigantic bump in edge AI performance. Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus 3nm SoC with 80 TOPS NPU announced

At CES, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X2 Plus platform, the newest addition to the Snapdragon X Series as the successor to Snapdragon X Plus. Designed to power Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs, the platform is positioned to serve modern professionals and creators requiring high performance and portability. The Snapdragon X2 Plus is built on a 64-bit architecture and features the third-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU. The platform is available in two distinct configurations: a 10-core variant (part number X2P-64-100) and a 6-core variant (part number X2P-42-100). Both versions support a multi-core maximum frequency of 4.0 GHz, promising 35% faster single-core CPU performance, while using 43% less power compared to the previous generation. Graphics processing is handled by the Qualcomm Adreno GPU, designed to deliver immersive visuals. The GPU performance differs between the two variants; the 10-core model operates at a frequency of 1.7 GHz, while the 6-core model operates at 0.9 GHz. The platform supports LPDDR5X memory with a transfer rate of 9523 MT/s and a maximum capacity of 128 GB. A central feature of the Snapdragon X2 Plus is its focus on artificial intelligence. It integrates the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, which delivers 80 TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second) of AI performance. This NPU is engineered to handle next-generation agentic AI experiences and effortless multitasking. Qualcomm states that the platform supports over 50 on-device AI experiences, accelerating workflows such as photo and video editing and multimodal content generation. The platform includes the Snapdragon X75 5G Modem-RF System and the Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 System, providing support for 5G, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. Connectivity features allow for high-speed access and High Band Simultaneous operations. Regarding energy efficiency, the Snapdragon X2 Plus is designed to offer multi-day battery life. Intelligent power management distributes power to maintain consistent responsiveness, ensuring there is no drop in performance when the device is running on battery power. Security is managed through a combination of hardware and cloud technologies. The platform utilizes the Qualcomm SPU with Microsoft Pluton to provide chip-to-cloud protection. Additionally, optional Snapdragon Guardian Technology offers enterprise-grade protection, including automatic presence detection and biometric authentication. This system also supports Out-of-Band (OOB) remote manageability for maintenance and security updates. Devices featuring the new Snapdragon X2 Plus chipset are expected from leading OEMs in the first half of 2026.

Snapdragon X2 Plus chip explained: Qualcomm's more affordable AI laptop chip

Bridges gap between Snapdragon X2 Elite and everyday laptops Every year, at CES, chipmakers wax eloquent about their next big laptop chip. It's an annual ritual that takes place like clockwork. They point out how a brand new slab of silicon will make soon-to-launch laptops feel less like a laptop and more like a fanless supercomputer. At least, that's been their noticeable tune for AI PC chips for the last year or so. In this mix, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Plus, announced at CES 2026, feels like a more grounded kind of flex. I say this not because of the intrinsic features of the platform, but because it's designed to show up in a vast majority of laptops that people will actually consider buying later this year. Beyond all the hyperbole, Qualcomm is clearly positioning the Snapdragon X2 Plus as the mainstream step in its Snapdragon X2 ladder - powering Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs and laptops that still care for long battery life and snappy responsiveness, but don't need to charge a heavy premium like laptops sporting the X2 Elite chips. Laptops based on the newer, slightly more modest Snapdragon X2 Plus chip are expected in the first half of 2026, according to Qualcomm's comments at CES 2026. Basically, there are two main versions of the Snapdragon X2 Plus, and Qualcomm is unusually transparent about what changes they will be sporting (compared to the Snapdragon X2 Elite chip variants): Also read: Snapdragon X2 Elite benchmarks: Windows 11 gaming on Adreno X2 GPU Both chips run an Adreno X2-45 GPU, which looks great on paper, but obviously there's a slight difference between the two. Their individual clock speeds tell you which one's meant to play nicer - the 10-core part goes up to 1.7-GHz, while the 6-core version drops to about 0.9-GHz. If you were hoping "Plus" secretly means "budget gaming beast," this is Qualcomm gently taking your hand and guiding you away from that thought. But apart from that everything else is expected to be rosy on laptops sporting the Snapdragon X2 Plus, at least on paper. The big headline here is of course the fact that both chip variants of the Snapdragon X2 Plus sport the same integrated Hexagon NPU rated at 80 TOPS (INT8). Qualcomm is betting that in 2026, "AI PC" isn't a sticker - it's whether your laptop can do heavy on-device work (vision, transcription, generative features) without draining the battery super fast or bouncing everything to the cloud. Memory support is also unapologetically ambitious for this tier: up to 128GB of LPDDR5x-9523 (with a 128-bit bus and 152GB/s bandwidth). But with the AI-induced memory woes, it remains to be seen how laptop OEMs finally decide to package the requisite RAM for the Snapdragon X2 Plus variants. In terms of pure performance of these new Snapdragon X2 Plus variants, Qualcomm is currently comparing everything to the previous Snapdragon X Plus generation. The company claims up to 35% faster single-core CPU performance, with multi-core gains peaking at 17% on the 10-core model (and 10% on the 6-core). Similarly, GPU uplift depends on Adreno SKU, with gains pegged up to 29% on the 10-core chip and up to 39% on the 6-core. Not to forget the all important battery performance claims, Qualcomm says the Snapdragon X2 Plus can use up to 43% less power than the prior generation, while still chasing "multi-day battery life." It's the same philosophy that's defined Snapdragon laptops so far - sustained performance on battery, not a sprint followed by an unplugged collapse. Make no mistakes, the Snapdragon X2 Elite (announced September 2025) is still the "bigger engine" family. Qualcomm's own product brief shows Elite parts scaling up to 18 cores and 53MB cache, with higher-tier Adreno X2 GPUs (X2-85 / X2-90) running up to 1.70-1.85GHz. That's the obvious additional headroom X2 Plus doesn't chase - especially when the 6-core X2 Plus variant drops its GPU clock to 0.9GHz. With respect to the NPU and AI is where the gap narrows between the two, based on numbers Qualcomm has shared at CES 2026. The Snapdragon X2 Plus stays at 80 TOPS, while the Elite lineup ranges 80-85 TOPS depending on the SKU. In other words, Qualcomm isn't treating on-device AI as a luxury feature - it's trying to make it a baseline across the stack. This is great for relatively lower-priced Snapdragon laptop buyers, especially in a price sensitive market like India. And yes, pricing "swim lanes" matter. Qualcomm has suggested Plus laptops belong around the $800+ tier, with Elite higher. We'll have to wait and see the launch price of laptops sporting the Snapdragon X2 Plus here in India, let's hope Qualcomm and its OEM partners are aggressive in their pricing and make X2 Plus laptops really affordable for Indian consumers.