Early benchmarks show the upcoming Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme outperforming current mobile chips, but real-world performance and pricing remain uncertain.

Qualcomm has unveiled early benchmark results for its upcoming Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, a chip designed for laptops and compact desktops, showing impressive performance gains over its predecessors and current competitors. The X2 Elite Extreme, featuring 18 cores and 48GB of LPDDR5X-9523 RAM on a 192-bit bus, delivered single-core and multi-core scores that significantly outperformed the previous-generation Snapdragon X Elite and several competing chips from AMD, Intel, and Apple.

During testing at Qualcomm’s event in Maui, the X2 Elite Extreme achieved a single-core score of 4,080 on Geekbench 6.5, a 39% increase over the previous model. In multi-core testing, it scored 23,491, a 50% improvement over the older X Elite. The chip also showed strong results in AI performance, with the Hexagon NPU scoring 4,151 on the Procyon AI Computer Vision benchmark, 78% faster than its predecessor. In another AI test using Geekbench AI 1.5, the X2 Elite Extreme scored 88,615, far outperforming the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, though the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 did not run the test.

For graphics performance, the X2 Elite Extreme scored 90.06 on the 3DMark Solar Bay benchmark, 80% faster than the previous generation. However, these results were obtained on a custom reference design, and the final retail devices may vary based on cooling and configuration. Qualcomm’s test system was a slim 16-inch laptop with 1TB of storage, but the performance of the chip in more typical 1298-bit bus configurations remains to be seen.

Qualcomm has only stated that we should see X2 Extreme devices in the first half of 2026, which could place them against next-gen designs from Apple, Intel, and AMD. The pricing is expected to be higher than last year’s X chips, potentially limiting its appeal to a niche market of performance-focused users. The lesser X2 Elite chips will likely be more popular, but if Qualcomm can maintain an impressive performance lead over its next-gen competition, there will always be those willing to pay extra for the best performance possible.

The X2 Elite Extreme also supports Arm Scalable Matrix Extensions (SME) instructions, which are designed to accelerate matrix operations commonly found in AI and HPC-class workloads. While this feature isn’t commonly used in standard desktop applications, it contributes to the large performance gains seen in the Geekbench 6.5 tests. However, the benchmarks used by Qualcomm were selected to highlight the chip’s capabilities, and the results should be interpreted with caution.

In addition to performance, power efficiency is a key selling point for the X2 Elite Extreme. Qualcomm claims the chip can deliver up to 31% better performance while consuming 43% less power than its first-gen Snapdragon X silicon. This could be a significant advantage in mobile and hybrid devices where battery life is a critical factor.

The X2 Elite Extreme is part of Qualcomm’s broader push into the laptop and desktop markets, where it has been steadily gaining ground against traditional x86 competitors. With its combination of high-performance cores, advanced AI capabilities, and improved power efficiency, the X2 Elite Extreme could reshape the landscape of mobile computing.

In summary, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme appears to be a formidable contender in the mobile chip market, but the real-world performance and pricing of the final products will be critical factors in determining its success.