Snapdragon X Elite — it’s true Link to heading

So, I just picked up Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x from BestBuy. This laptop is one of the first laptops to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdraon X Elite. Here are my impressions

  • I struggled for 30 mins just trying to turn on the laptop. It wouldn’t turn on the first time unless it was plugged into the power, even though it had more than enough battery left. Big contrast to Apple’s attention to details.
  • Setting up as a new Windows PC was a pain, especially because Windows 11 requires Microsoft account login through network connection. Fortunately, there is a way to bypass, for now: Shift + F10 and enter OOBE\BYPASSNRO . Reminds me why I don’t use Windows.
  • I love the pure black on the OLED screen. Since I always set it to the dark mode, this could save some juice compared to LCD.
  • After usual Windows update, I installed WSL, the single best feature on Windows.
  • I ran my usual single-core benchmark on WSL. Surprisingly, it ran extremely slow to the point I felt deceived. Then I realized it was running in the balanced mode. After switching to the best performance mode, it ran reasonably fast, though still lagging behind M2. Below shows comparison against systems I have: M2 from MacBook Air and Ryzen5 5600H from a mini PC.

Single-core benchmark with decompression

  • I also ran my usual multi-core benchmark on WSL. This is where Snapdragon X Elite truly shines boasting its 12 performance cores, beating M2 by as much as 2x. Note that for both single-core and multi-core benchmarks, I ran the tests with the power unplugged.

Multi-core benchmark with compression

  • I installed StarCraft and StarCraft II and was able to play the games with no issue. It took some time to launch the game, probably due to x64 to ARM emulation, but once the game launched, I didn’t have any issue playing the game on best performance mode. I did feel the laptop was getting warmer and the fan kicked in.
  • Battery seems to be quite decent, although I didn’t have enough time to test thoroughly just yet. From the short time I had, I’d dare say on par with Apple’s recent M-series MacBooks. However, one must take into account that Yoga Slim 7x is equipped with whopping 70W-hr battery whereas MacBook Air 13-inch has only ~53W-hr capacity.

Thoughts Link to heading

  • Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is the first true competitor to Apple’s Silicon.
  • However, its single-core performance is still lagging behind Apple by two-generations.
  • To compensate, Qualcomm is shipping with 12-performance cores with no efficiency cores.
  • This results in more heat and fan noise than Apple Silicon, though still better than x86.
  • On the positive note, Qualcomm has the potential for a big jump in power efficiency near future by introducing efficiency cores.
  • Legacy programs and lack of ARM compatibility in some programs will be the major hurdle for Windows on ARM.
  • Balanced mode is a joke; just stick to best performance mode.
  • x86 camp is facing a real threat to its survival — admittedly not any time soon but will happen eventually — unless Intel and AMD can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Well done Qualcomm!

Note Link to heading

Ryzen5 5600H is a power-hungry 45W TDP CPU, so I admit that it is probably not fair to be compared against lower-power Snapdragon X with 28W TDP. On the other hand, 5600H is several generations old while Snapdragon X has been just released. In conclusion, my benchmark result does not necessarily reflect fair x86 vs ARM performance, but is there for a single point of reference.