Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
34 comments
·September 24, 2025groguzt
wyldfire
The truth is much more subtle than "nonexistent" IMO [1].
Clearly it's a priority because the support for ChromeOS l/android is a big headline this year.
[1] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-10-concept-snapdrag...
wmf
My (admittedly cynical) interpretation is that they are dropping support for desktop Linux completely and shipping Android drivers instead.
jasoneckert
As someone who has used the Snapdragon X Elite (12 core Oryon) Dev Kit as a daily driver for the past year, I find this exciting. The X Elite performance still blows my mind today - so the new X2 Elite with 18 cores is likely going to be even more impressive from a performance perspective!
I can't speak to the battery life, however, since it is dismal on my Dev Kit ;-)
typpilol
How's the compatibility? Are there any apps that don't work that are critical?
electroly
Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible. Creation of a recovery drive for a Snapdragon-based Surface (which you have to do from a working Snapdragon-based Surface) requires typing your serial code into a Microsoft website, then downloading a .zip of drivers that you manually overwrite onto the recovery media that Windows 11 creates for you.
Day-to-day, it's all fine, but I may be returning to x64 next time around. I'm not sure that I'm receiving an offsetting benefit for these downsides. Battery life isn't something that matters for me.
brokencode
That’s brutal.. I wonder why the Apple Silicon transition seemed so much smoother in comparison.
jasoneckert
Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No."
The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!
christopher8827
Most apps for dev work actually work; - RStudio - VS Code - WSL2 - Fusion 360 - Docker
Only major exception is: - Android Studio's Emulator (although, the IDE does work)
drewg123
Does anybody know if the X2 supports the x86 Total store ordering (TSO) memory ordering model? That's how Apple silicon does such efficient emulation of x86. I'd think that would be even MORE important for a Windows ARM64 laptop where there is so much more legacy x86 software going back decades.
orthoxerox
Not a single benchmark even against the previous generation. Just a "legendary leap in performance".
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leakycap
Bigly fast, trust them!
evanjrowley
Today Qualcomm CEO stated[0] that the combination of Android and ChromeOS, e.g. Android Computers, will be available on Snapdragon laptops. Maybe these X2 CPUs will be in those laptops.
[0] https://www.techradar.com/phones/android/ive-seen-it-its-inc...
potwinkle
Why can't I scroll on this page with the trackpad? Mouse scroll and arrow scroll both work fine.
daniel_iversen
“Multi-day” battery life sounds wild! That’s probably the biggest thing for users. It would be good for Apple to get some competition because their M-chips seemed so far away from everything else.
otterley
Careful; the multi-day claims may depend on having an unrealistically huge battery, or being active only sporadically across the time period.
ggm
Who is likely to package this into existing lines, from the majors? Is this a future lenovo/thinkpad carbon?
thewebguyd
I would assume it'll follow the path as the first X Elite.
MS put out surface & surface laptop with it, Lenovo did do the ThinkPad X1 with it, and Dell put it in the XPS line.
throwaway74354
X1 Carbon is part of the Intel Evo Platform. These are co-developed with Intel and therefore this line is exclusive to them.
X13s was confirmed to be sunset, another T14s is the most likely candidate among the ThinkPads.
wmf
It's likely to be in Thinkpads (unless Lenovo lost so much money on the X Elite that they ragequit ARM).
otterley
Any thermal design power data? It's difficult to evaluate their efficiency claims (work per watt) without it.
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cultofmetatron
why is it so hard for these companies to do any kind of descent marketing? more importantly, when do we get descent macbook air competitors?
thewebguyd
> when do we get descent macbook air competitors
When laptop OEMs stop catering to the lowest common denominator corporate IT purchasers (departments which don't care about screen quality, speaker quality, or much of anything else outside of does the spec sheet on paper match our requirements and is it cheap).
sciencesama
how much ram can these support ?
Linux support is still basically non-existent for the first gen, and they made all this deal about supporting Linux and the open source community. This is to say, don't trust them