SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 10, 2026, 00:50 (PST)
- Early third-party benchmarks put Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite ahead of Apple’s M5 in several multi-core and real-world workload tests.
- Apple’s M5 kept a clear single-core lead, and early gaming results showed stutters and gaps versus Intel’s newest chips.
- Reviewers said the results came from pre-production hardware and early software, with battery life still an open question.
Early tests on a prototype Asus Zenbook A14 suggest Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X2 Elite can beat Apple’s M5 in several performance benchmarks, a shift that would have sounded unlikely a year ago.
The timing matters. PC makers and Microsoft are lining up a new wave of Arm-based Windows laptops — Arm is the chip design used in most smartphones — aimed at matching MacBook-class speed without chewing through a battery.
It also lands in the middle of a wider fight for premium notebooks, where Apple’s M-series chips set the bar and Intel and AMD are pushing new mobile silicon to defend Windows turf.
Hardware Canucks ran the tests on pre-production Asus Vivobook and Zenbook units after Asus cleared the work, PCWorld reported. The reviewer said the machines used early firmware and drivers and did not publish battery benchmarks, with the chip tested being the X2E-88-100, a step below Qualcomm’s top “Elite Extreme” part; the report said the first X2 Elite laptops were expected to start arriving in February and March. (PCWorld)
In Cinebench 2024 — a benchmark that measures CPU rendering speed — the X2 Elite scored 1,432 in multi-core mode, compared with 1,153 for the M5, results cited by Windows Central showed. Apple stayed ahead in single-core, 200 to Qualcomm’s 146, but the X2 Elite finished a Blender render in 3 minutes 31 seconds versus the M5’s 5:33 and encoded a Handbrake video in 3:29 versus 5:14; Intel’s Core Ultra X9 388H and AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 trailed in those runs, with the chips tested at 31 watts and 26 watts for the M5. (Windowscentral)
9to5Google said the new chip’s single-core Cinebench score improved by 46 points over the prior generation, even as it still lagged Apple by about 50 points. It also flagged gains in DaVinci Resolve, where a 10‑minute 4K export that took more than 33 minutes on the last-gen Snapdragon X Elite dropped by a little over 10 minutes on X2 Elite — though it still took about twice as long as the MacBook in that test. (9To5Google)
Gaming looked better than the first Snapdragon X Elite, but the gaps did not disappear. Notebookcheck reported the X2 Elite averaged 40 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1200p medium settings using FSR 3 — an upscaling tool that trades image detail for higher frame rates — versus 22 fps on the earlier chip, while Intel’s Arc B390 graphics inside a Core Ultra X9 388H machine averaged 46 fps; the X2 Elite’s “1% lows,” a measure of the worst stutters, fell to 18 fps versus 34 fps on the Intel system. (Notebookcheck)
The picture is messy, but familiar. Multi-core speed helps with long jobs like video conversion and 3D rendering, while single-core performance still shapes how “snappy” a machine feels when you are just opening apps and bouncing between tabs.
But the results are still a preview, not a verdict. Power draw, sustained performance, app compatibility and battery life could move once firmware, drivers and Windows updates land, and the early stutters in games hint at a software problem that raw benchmark wins will not hide.
Qualcomm has also been trying to sell the Snapdragon X2 Elite as more than a speed bump, adding features aimed at corporate laptop fleets such as remote security controls, Reuters reported last year. “Nobody else can offer something like that,” said Ben Bajarin, chief executive of consultancy Creative Strategies, referring to Qualcomm’s plan to pair those tools with its 5G modem chips. (Reuters)
For now, the chip war is playing out in charts and preview units. The real test comes when retail Snapdragon X2 Elite laptops ship with final software — and when independent reviews can run the battery loops and app-compatibility checks that buyers will care about more than a single graph.
