(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
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.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)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.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)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.
(Credit: Qualcomm )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...
(Credit: Qualcomm )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.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)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.
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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.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)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.