Apple has once again one-upped Qualcomm by releasing its latest silicon, the Apple M4, ahead of the Snapdragon X Elite debut. The new Apple M4 chipset has been introduced with the OLED iPad Pro. However, we are interested in comparing the Apple M4 chipset with the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processor for Windows PCs. So in this article, I take a detailed look at their CPU, GPU and NPU/Neural Engine, and try to figure out who takes the lead in consumer chipsets. With that said, let's begin.

We have updated the frequency specification of Apple M4 based on the recently revealed Geekbench listing. Additionally, we have added the Geekbench score of the Apple M4 chipset to our analysis.

Check out the Apple M4 vs Snapdragon X Elite specs comparison to understand the difference between the two chipsets. Apple M4Snapdragon X EliteFabrication ProcessTSMC's 2nd generation 3nmTSMC's 4nmTransistors28 billionUnknownCPU cores9 CPU cores3 performance + 6 efficiency10 CPU cores4 performance + 6 efficiency12 CPU cores8 performance + 4 efficiency cores10ap cores 10ap cores 4 CPU cores + 4 CPU Cores +4 CPU Cores HW Ray TracingHW Mesh Shading6 Adreno GPU Cores (likely)4.6 TFLOPs FrequencyUp to 4.4GHz3.8GHz; Dual-core boost up to 4.2GHz3.4GHz; Dual-core boost up to 4.0GHz3.4GHz (X Plus); No dual-core boostTDPNot known yet35W to 82W (likely) Neural Engine16 cores; 38 TOPS Hexagon NPU; 45 TOPSUnified memory (RAM)8GB and 16GBUp to 64GBMemory bandwidth120GBps135GBpsRAM TypeNot known yetLPDDR5XOtherAV1 decodeAV1 encode and decode

Apple has introduced the M4 chipset with the iPad Pro (2024) and currently offers only two variants: one with 9 CPU cores and another with 10 CPU cores. The M4 is built on TSMC's second-generation 3nm (N3E) process node, which is promised to deliver better performance while improving efficiency. This is also the first consumer chip developed on the N3E node.