The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 was not the only major announcement that Qualcomm wanted to share with the masses, because it has unveiled two completely different class of chipsets and it is called them the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and the Snapdragon X2 Elite. Both SoCs leverage the 3nm process, and here is everything you need to know.
There is only a single part number of the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, which is X2E-96-100, and it sports a total of 18 cores, of which 12 hail from the ‘Prime’ category, while the remaining six are performance cores. Qualcomm’s new SoC is the first ARM-based chip to run at 5.00GHz, though the boost frequency can only be witnessed if one or two cores are active. Even then, notebook manufacturers need to employ some serious cooling to achieve these speeds.
The total cache is 53MB, with the maximum frequency for the Prime cores listed as 4.40GHz and the maximum frequency for the performance cores listed as 3.60GHz. The new Adreno GPU operates at 1.85GHz, with the Hexagon NPU featuring an operating performance of 80TOPS. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme’s RAM support is retained at LPDDR5X, with its bandwidth raised to 228GB/s.
Snapdragon X2 Elite – Two versions with varying core counts and cache
There are two part numbers listed as X2E-88-100 and X2E-80-100. The most powerful variant sports an 18-core configuration (12 Prime cores, 6 performance cores), with the maximum single-core or dual-core frequency listed as 4.70GHz. Like the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, one Snapdragon X2 Elite’s total cache is 53MB, while the less powerful one is equipped with 34MB, along with a 12-core configuration.
Both chipsets’ graphics processors operate at 1.70GHz, with the Hexagon NPU running at 80TOPS, along with LPDDR5X RAM support. Memory bandwidth is also said to reach 152GB/s.
Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is built for ultra-premium PCs, tackling agentic AI experiences, computationally intense data analytics, professional media editing and scientific research. Ultimate power users, experienced creators and professional producers can carry out their complex, expert-level workloads on thin and light PCs while plugged in or on the go.
Featuring the best-in-class 3rd Gen Qualcomm Oryon CPU, Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme provides the fastest and most power-efficient performance for Windows: up to 75% faster CPU performance than competition at ISO power. A new Qualcomm Adreno GPU architecture offers a 2.3X increase in performance per watt and power efficiency over the previous generation. The Qualcomm Hexagon NPU features 80 TOPS of AI processing—the world’s fastest NPU for laptops—to enable concurrent AI experiences in Copilot+ PCs.
The first wave of laptops powered by the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and the Snapdragon X2 Elite will arrive in H1 2026, but no specific companies and their respective machines have been mentioned in the official announcement.