Qualcomm is determined to cut a slice out of Intel's PC pie with latest Snapdragon chips

Qualcomm is trying to become a major player in the laptop processor space. Its Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips, along with a concerted effort to improve the Windows on Arm software ecosystem, have made it a credible alternative to Intel and AMD, although it's still stuck at below 1% market share. On Monday at CES in Las Vegas, the company showed the next step in this strategy: the next-gen Snapdragon X2 Plus chips, which are targeted at budget and mainstream systems.

Available in two SKUs – a 10-core model and a 6-core alternative – the Snapdragon X2 Plus boasts a maximum 4 GHz clock speed, support for high-speed LPDDR5x memory, and an NPU that achieves up to 80 TOPS (trillion operations per second) for local AI. Qualcomm claims that the new chips, based on a 3nm process, will provide multi-day battery life in laptops due to their improved power ...