Qualcomm’s new X Plus 8-core chip promises cheaper Snapdragon laptops

I’ve fallen in love with almost every Snapdragon laptop I’ve reviewed this year but they’ve mostly been mid-range or premium devices with prices to match. Most of the laptops I’ve reviewed so far have exceeded the £1,000 barrier. Now, Qualcomm has a new chip – the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core – and it’s aimed at much more affordable machines.

This latest chip will have the same AI capabilities as the 10-core X Plus and 12-core X Elite, with the same 45 TOPs NPU and highly efficient ARM architecture. And just as with the launch of the X Elite and X Plus chips earlier this year, you’ll be able to buy laptops with the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core inside straight away. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Asus and Acer will all be delivering machines with this latest silicon inside.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core: Specifications

• 8 Oryon CPU cores up to 3.2GHz (single core frequency up to 3.4GHz)
• 4nm manufacturing process
• 30MB total cache
• Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, with up to 45 TOPS performance
• Adreno GPU with 1.7 TFLOPS of processing power
• Up to 64GB of RAM, 135GB/sec bandwidth, 8 channels
• Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 support
• Up to 3 x USB 4.0 (40Gbits/sec), 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2×1

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core: Key features

The key attraction of the latest Snapdragon chip – the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core X1P-42-100, to give it its full name – as with the rest of the range is likely to be efficiency. The chip uses the same architecture as the more performant processors in the Snapdragon X range, and the same 4nm manufacturing process, but with everything else dialled back a little.

Naturally, there are two fewer cores than the next processor up the range, but there are a handful of other small differences. There’s less total cache, for example, at 30MB compared to the 42MB of the X Plus and X Elite chips. It runs at a lower maximum multithread frequency, too, at 3.2GHz compared with 3.4GHz and 3.8GHz, although its maximum single thread frequency is 3.4GHz – a match for the X Plus 10-core processor.

There’s also no Dual-Core Boost tech here, but the biggest difference between this and its stablemates is graphics performance. The Adreno GPU inside the X Plus 8-core is capable of delivering a mere 1.7 TFLOPs of computing power, whereas the 10-core X Plus’ GPU can deliver up to 3.8 TFLOPs and the most powerful X Elite chips have GPUs capable of 4.6 TFLOPs. That’s quite the cutback and I’m concerned that it might affect the overall responsiveness of systems with the new chip inside.

Among the first laptops to receive the new chip is the Dell Inspiron 14, a laptop that sits firmly at the value end of the company’s laptop offerings. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio 14in IPS display with a fairly standard resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels and 300cd/m2 peak brightness.

I’ve already had my hands on the 10-core Inspiron 14 and this one is physically identical. It’s a slim (18mm), reasonably well-built machine, but it isn’t as exotic as Dell’s premium XPS laptops, and it weighs a relatively portly 1.5kg. The lowest-spec model comes with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Impressively, though, for a value-based laptop, the Inspiron has two full-speed 40Gbits/sec USB-C sockets and these are accompanied by one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm headset jack. It’s certainly a practical little thing.

Elsewhere, Asus is launching two laptops based on the 8-Core Snapdragon X Plus: cheaper versions of both the excellent Asus Vivobook S 15 I reviewed a few months ago and the Asus ProArt PZ13 I first saw at Computex 2024.  The former is a 15.6in laptop with a sumptuous 3K OLED screen and up to 19 hours of battery life. The latter, a 2-in-1 detachable Windows tablet with a 3K OLED display and 21 hours of battery life.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core preview: Early verdict

Dell hasn’t set prices just yet, but with the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus Inspiron 14 costing from £849, I’d expect this machine to be even cheaper, perhaps dropping as low as £749 eventually. And laptops like this are crucial if Qualcomm wants Snapdragon devices to be more widely adopted.

It’s all very well selling a handful of slim, sleek and powerful premium laptops, but if the company really wants Snapdragon laptops to take a serious chunk of market share, it needs to crack the budget market. And if it can persuade manufacturers to sell long-lasting, good-quality laptops for peanuts, it’ll be well on its way to achieving that.