Microsoft recently debuted its new Surface Laptop featuring ARM-based Snapdragon SoCs. These laptops are currently available for pre-order, with shipping starting in July. That means there’s still some time before we can see the real-life performance of the new chipset.

However, hardware enthusiast HXL recently shared benchmarks for the new Surface Laptop powered by the Snapdragon X Elite processor and it shows the processor might hold its own against Apple’s M2 chip. 

The benchmark ran was CPU-Z on a Surface Laptop 7 with the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 SoC. Since the CPU-Z isn’t available on MacBooks, HXL booted a virtual Windows 11 to run the benchmark.

Note that virtual machines can introduce performance overhead, potentially hindering the M2’s score. So take this data with a pinch of salt. 

The Surface Laptop 7 scored a significantly higher multi-threaded score (7,923.5 points) compared to the M2 in the virtual machine (3,822.3 points), while the M2 held a slight edge in single-threaded performance (749.5 points vs 686.0 points).

Snapdragon X Elite is claimed to outperform current offerings from Intel and AMD. However, this is the first real-world comparison we’ve seen for Apple silicon. 

It shows that Snapdragon X Elite laptops could be a viable alternative for users who prefer thin-and-light designs and extended battery life, while still offering a choice between Windows and macOS.

Qualcomm is also bringing official Linux support for the Snapdragon X processors which will certainly appeal to those who prefer open-source operating systems. 

The benchmark shows that the X Elite could be a strong competitor against Apple’s well-regarded M-series chipset. However, we’ll need to see more data to fully understand how it compares.

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