The Snapdragon X2 Plus, announced at CES 2026, joins the X2 family of SoCs, which already has two more powerful members: the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, which were announced at last year’s Snapdragon Summit. The newer X2 Plus chip will power more affordable Windows notebooks and take on Apple Silicon. But it turns out, Qualcomm’s met with another defeat here, as the X2 Plus lags far behind Apple M4 in key CPU and GPU benchmarks.
On paper, the Snapdragon X2 Plus looks rather impressive. It’s got higher cache memory, bandwidth, and a much higher on-chip TOPS than Apple M4, but it’s the overall package that matters, where Apple Silicon maintains a strong lead.
A series of synthetic benchmark tests run by PCMAG reveals that Apple’s previous-generation silicon can comfortably outperform the latest rivals from Qualcomm. The chips were tested across key benchmarks, including Geekbench 6, 3DMark Steel Nomad Light, 3DMark Solar Bay, and Cinebench 2024, with most of them showing a higher score for the Apple M4, by up to 30%.
Benchmark scores
Geekbench 6
| Snapdragon X2 Plus | Apple M4 | |
| Single core | 3,311 | 3,859 (16.55% faster) |
| Multi core | 14,940 | 15,093 (1.02% faster) |
Cinebench 2024
| Snapdragon X2 Plus | Apple M4 | |
| Single core | 133 | 173 (30.08% faster) |
| Multi core | 1,011 | 993 (1.81% slower) |
3DMark
| Snapdragon X2 Plus | Apple M4 | |
| Steel Nomad Light | 3,067 | 3,949 (28.76% faster) |
| Solay Bay | 12,525 | 15,580 (24.39% faster) |
While the Snapdragon X2 Plus is a strong upgrade over the original Snapdragon X Plus, it still can’t beat 2024’s Apple M4 Silicon, which only means a far worse result when compared to Apple M5. However, on the plus side, the Qualcomm X2 series SoCs show rather impressive numbers against the powerful chips from Intel and AMD.
Note that synthetic benchmarks, although useful, don’t show the complete picture. I would rather wait for more benchmarks or real-world comparisons to reach a conclusion. Unfortunately, the wait appears to be a little longer, as Snapdragon X2 Plus-powered Windows notebooks are expected to hit the market in the second quarter.
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