Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 vs Intel Core i7-1265U vs Intel Pentium 8505
Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100
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The Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 is a pretty fast ARM architecture processor (SoC) for use in Windows laptops. The X1E-84-100 is the fastest member of the Snapdragon X series, as of May 2024; as such, it has 12 Oryon CPU cores (3 clusters of equally powerful cores; 12 threads) running at up to 4.2 GHz, along with the 4.6 TFLOPS Adreno X1-85 GPU, the 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU and an impressively fast LPDDR5x-8448 memory controller.
Two slower Snapdragon X Elite flavors exist, known as the X1E-80-100 and X1E-78-100. In the meantime, the X1E-00-1DE is a special version of the X1E-84-100 aimed at system makers and software developers that has just slightly higher single-core and dual-core Boost clock speed of 4.3 GHz but otherwise the same CPU/GPU/NPU configuration.
Architecture and Features
Qualcomm Oryon cores are in part based on Nuvia IP; they most likely make use of the ARM v8.7 microarchitecture. Much like modern AMD and Intel processors, the Snapdragon chip is compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt 4 but it remains to be seen if the X Elite is compatible with GeForce or Radeon discrete graphics cards.
The Qualcomm SoC is believed to have at least 12 PCIe 4 and 4 PCIe 3 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices. NVMe SSDs are supported with a throughput of up to 7.9 GB/s; furthermore, most laptops built around the chip are expected to have 16 GB of LPDDR5X-8448 RAM. There is also a 45 TOPS NPU for accelerating AI workloads.
Performance
When all of the 12 cores are under load, they run at up to 3.8 GHz. The 4.2 GHz clock speed is only achievable under single-thread or dual-thread loads.
Taking the difference in clock speeds into consideration, its multi-thread performance should be around 12% higher than that of the X Elite X1E-78-100 for AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS-like performance in most real-world tasks. We'll make sure to update this section once we get our hands on a laptop powered by the X1E-84-100.
Like any other Windows on ARM platform, the Snapdragon X chip works best with applications and games compiled specifically for ARM processors. If making use of the built-in x86 to ARM emulation mode, a performance penalty of about 20% is to be expected.
Graphics
The integrated 4.6 TFLOPS X1-85 GPU is DirectX 12-enabled but not DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled, despite featuring VRS and ray tracing support. The 4.6 TFLOPS of performance that it supposedly delivers represent a half of what the slowest current-generation professional Nvidia Ada graphics card for laptops, the RTX 500 Ada, is capable of.
Its gaming performance is set to be just slightly better than that of the Radeon 780M. That should be sufficient for about 30 fps in Baldur's Gate 3, a triple-A title released in 2023, at 1080p / Low. Slightly older games will run just fine with most settings set to Medium.
The Qualcomm iGPU will let you use up to 3 UHD 2160p monitors simultaneously. 2160p120 integrated displays are supported, as are the popular AV1, HEVC and AVC video codecs (both decoding and encoding). The hardware does not support the VVC codec; that feature remains a Lunar Lake exclusive for now.
Power consumption
As the most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip, the X1E-84-100 can eat up to 80 watts depending on the system and the power profile chosen. This will differ from one laptop to another, with most designs expected to target the 40 W sweet spot.
The SoC is built with a 4 nm TSMC process for decent, as of H1 2024, energy efficiency.
Intel Core i7-1265U
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The Intel Core i7-1265U is a high-end mobile CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers 2 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 12 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 1.8 to 4.8 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.3 to 3.6 GHz on the efficient cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6700HQ). All cores can use up to 12 MB L3 cache. The 1265U offers "Enterprise" vPro management features. Compared to the P-series (28W) or H-series (45W), the 15W TDP may limit the sustained performance.
Performance
Thanks to the 10 cores, the multi-threaded performance should be clearly faster than the older quad-core Tiger Lake CPUs with 15 Watt (like the Intel Core i7-1160G7). The sustained performance will be limited by the TDP setting and thermals and therefore only short term loads. Thanks to the architectural improvements of the big Golden Cove cores, the single thread performance should be better than similar clocked Tiger Lake CPUs.
Features
The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).
The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers all 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.25 GHz.
The CPU is rated at 15 W base power (TDP, PL1) and 55 W max. Turbo power (PL2) and the whole SoC is manufactured on a 10nm process at Intel, which is known as Intel 7.
Intel Pentium 8505
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The Intel Pentium 8505 is an entry-level mobile CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers one performance core (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 4 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 6 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 1.2 to 4.4 GHz on the performance cluster and 0.9 to 3.3 GHz on the efficient cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6700HQ). All cores can use up to 8 MB L3-cache. Compared to the faster Core i3-1215U, the Pentium offers one less P-core.
Performance
This is a fairly unpopular CPU, if the fact that we have not tested a single system built around it as of August 2023 is any indication. That said, we have tested a few systems featuring the Core i3-1215U, a chip with the same clock speeds and the same 4 E-cores but with 2 P-cores instead of 1. Based on that, expect the 8505 to be 10% to 20% behind the Ryzen 3 5300U and the Core i7-1185G7, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned.
Your mileage may vary depending on how competent the cooling solution of your laptop is and how high the CPU power limits are.
Features
The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).
The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 48 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.1 GHz.
Power consumption
The Pentium has a Base power consumption of 15 W, with 55 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. These values are fairly high; passive cooling solutions aren't really an option here.
The CPU is built with Intel's 3rd generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.
Model | Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 | Intel Core i7-1265U | Intel Pentium 8505 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series | Qualcomm Snapdragon X | Intel Alder Lake-M | Intel Alder Lake-M | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Codename | Oryon | Alder Lake-U | Alder Lake-U | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series: Alder Lake-M Alder Lake-U |
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Clock | <=4200 MHz | 1300 - 4800 MHz | 900 - 4400 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cores / Threads | 12 / 12 12 x 4.2 GHz Qualcomm Oryon | 10 / 12 | 5 / 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TDP Turbo PL2 | 80 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technology | 4 nm | 10 nm | 10 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
iGPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon X Adreno X1-85 (4.6 TFLOPS) | Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs ( - 1250 MHz) | Intel UHD Graphics Xe G4 48EUs ( - 1100 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architecture | ARM | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manufacturer | www.qualcomm.com | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L1 Cache | 928 KB | 464 KB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L2 Cache | 9.5 MB | 3.5 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L3 Cache | 12 MB | 8 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TDP | 15 Watt | 15 Watt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Socket | BGA1744 | BGA1744 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | DDR4-3200/LPDDR4x-4266/DDR5-4800/LPDDR5-5200 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Dir., DL Boost, GNA, vPro, RPE, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA | DDR4-3200/LPDDR4x-4266/DDR5-4800/LPDDR5-5200 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, SHA |