Before you buy Snapdragon X Elite device - check the chip model number
Qualcomm released Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus SoCs with 12 and 10 cores respectively. Sadly there is another layer to this lineup. There are four X Elite variants with one important limitation on one of them.
You can check the SKU table on Qualcomm website. For Snapdragon X Elite we have:
- X1E-00-1DE: 3.8 GHz with 4.3 GHz boost on 1-2 cores (found in dev kit nettop)
- X1E-84-100: 3.8 GHz with 4.2 GHz boost on 1-2 cores
- X1E-80-100: 3.4 GHz with 4.0 GHz boost on 1-2 cores
- X1E-78-100: 3.4 GHz with no boost clocks
All X Elite SKUs have 12 cores - 8 performance and 4 efficiency cores. The X1E-78-100
SKU seems to be in many cheaper devices, and it's not always clear or disclosed on shop listings which variant is being used. Lack of boost clocks will limit the performance of the chip and will differ greatly from scores reached by the two top SKUs. 1-2 core boost clocks will affect games and single-core apps.
On the other hand lack of boost clocks can offer longer battery life, but this would have to be tested as we don't know the quality of silicon binned for those lower SKUs - it may be that they use slightly more power, and can't be clocked higher without providing even more power.
On top of that the performance may depend on a given laptop's thermal solution, set TDP, or other unexpected limitations, so you should look for reviews of the specific model you want to buy. And if your use cases don't require the best local computing power then even good prices on X1E-78-100 could be a good option, just know what you are buying.
The Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 has 10 instead of 12 cores (6 performance and 4 efficiency cores) and also does not have boost clocks enabled as well.
Comment article