Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite vs AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS: Which is the best laptop processor?

Modified Jun 19, 2024 22:50 GMT

Picture of the Snapdragon X Elite — The Snapdragon X Elite (Image via Qualcomm)

The Snapdragon X Elites CPUs are the talk of the town. Qualcomm announced this year that it is entering the PC market and plans to take on industry giants like AMD and Intel. The first laptops with its processor have been released. At this moment, the Ryzen 9 7940HS is quite popular in the gaming laptop space, but people are getting confused with Snapdragon laptops coming into the market.

This article will clear all confusion by determining which is the best laptop CPU. We will see if the Snapdragon processor has what it takes to beat AMD's Ryzen chip.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and solely reflect the writer's opinions.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite vs AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite is built on the ARM architecture. Meanwhile, the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS is built on the x86 architecture that has dominated the PC industry all this time. The Windows OS, the operating system that is used in a majority of PCs, was originally built for the x86 architecture and used to run poorly on ARM CPUs.

However, Microsoft has worked with Qualcomm a lot to make Windows run as well as possible on ARM processors. Native ARM programs obviously run well. However, Microsoft claims that even x86 apps will run well due to its emulation layer called Prism.

With that said, let's compare the two CPUs to see how they perform in real-world scenarios. Let's look at their specs first.

Specs comparison

The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS (Image via AMD) The Snapdragon X Elite (Image via Qualcomm)

Here are the specs of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS:

Specifications	Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite	AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
Architecture	Oryon (ARM)	Zen 4 (x86)
Cores	12	8
Threads	12	16
Max frequency	4.20 GHz	5.20 GHz
L3 cache	42MB L2 cache	8MB L2 cache 16MB L3 cache
RAM support	LPDDR5X-8448	DDR5-4800, DDR5-5600, LPDDR5-6400, LPDDR5X-7500
Max RAM capacity	64 GB	256 GB
Integrated GPU	Qualcomm Adreno X1	AMD Radeon 780M
Thermal design power (TDP)	23W Typical \| 80W Max	54W
Manufacturing node	4nm	4nm

As you can see, there are massive differences between the two CPUs. These processors have different core counts, cache sizes, clock speeds, DDR5 RAM support, integrated GPU, and more.

Performance benchmarks

Let's put the specs aside and check the performance of the two CPUs in popular benchmarks like Cinebench and Geekbench:

Benchmarks	Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite	AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)	2880	2533
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)	15211	12849
Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)	1789	1814
Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)	14764	17448

In Geekbench 6, the Snapdragon X Elite scores 14% and 18% higher in single-core and multi-core scores than the Ryzen 9 7940HS.

However, it's the opposite in Cinebench R23, where the AMD processor scores 1% and 18% higher in single-core and multi-core scores than the Qualcomm CPU. This is because Cinebench R23 doesn't run natively on the Snapdragon processor and uses the Prism emulation. Any program that runs via the emulation layer will always provide a lower score.

Gaming performance

The Snapdragon X Elite (Image via Qualcomm)

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite has the Adreno X1 for the integrated GPU, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS has the Radeon 790M. There are no official or third-party verified benchmarks of the integrated graphics processor between the two CPUs, so we can't say for sure which will win in gaming.

However, almost every PC game out there can run on the Radeon GPU natively, but that won't be the case with the Adreno X1 GPU inside the Snapdragon processor.

Therefore, there's a high chance that the AMD chip will be better in gaming, but there's no confirmation yet.

Which is the best laptop processor?

In terms of pure raw performance, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite is the best CPU, but when emulation comes into play, the AMD processor takes the lead. Emulation is required since the Snapdragon is based on ARM architecture. If it was designed on the x86 architecture, the benchmark comparison would have been a different story.

This is the biggest drawback of ARM CPUs. Qualcomm's decision to go with the ARM is based on two reasons. The company already develops ARM processors for phones, and it recently bought Nuvia, which develops ARM chips for servers. It was natural for it to enter the PC market sooner or later.

How successful Qualcomm becomes with the ARM CPU is something only time will tell, but the processor is in a decent position in terms of competition for now.

Check out our other CPU comparisons: