After Qualcomm launched its Snapdragon X series of ARM-based chipsets for Windows laptops, many dismissed Intel and the x86 architecture. But with the launch of Lunar Lake processors, Intel seems to be back in the game and confident in its new chipsets. With Lunar Lake, Intel offers a massive efficiency improvement, matching the Snapdragon X Elite's performance per watt. So we have carefully compared Intel Lunar Lake vs Snapdragon X Elite using available data.
Intel chip vs X Elite in the SAME Laptop – Who wins?
Let's start with the CPU. Intel says its new eight-core Lunar Lake CPU (4x Lion Cove + 4x Skymont) offers 20% more performance per watt compared to Qualcomm's 12-core Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-80-100). Intel has derived the number based on the UL Procyon Office Productivity benchmark.
In another slide, Intel mentions that its top-end Lunar Lake SKU, the Core Ultra 9 288V, delivers 7% faster performance than the Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-80-100) in the Cinebench 2024 single-threaded test. Performance is similar in the Geekbench single-core test.
Intel seems to have avoided multi-threaded testing as the Snapdragon X Elite has 12 cores and all Lunar Lake SKUs have 8 cores. We'll bring you more numbers and comparisons once we get our hands on a laptop powered by the recently launched 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chipsets.
