The M3 chips are another notch in Apple’s belt, providing incredible performance for their latest line of MacBooks. However, it looks like competition is about to become fierce, as the Snapdragon X Elite chips that are on their way seemingly perform better than the flagship M3.
TechRadar was able to test out the X Elite chips from Qualcomm, and by the looks of it, Apple is about to have some major competition on its hands. The chip performed incredibly when running 2023’s Game of the Year, Baldur’s Gate 3. It played at a stable 30 FPS with a 1200p resolution on a custom medium-low graphics setting. Alone, these stats aren’t that impressive. But, the game was being emulated on the chip. For being an emulation on a lightweight notebook, and with the scalability of the Snapdragon X Elite chips on these lightweight platforms, this is a remarkable performance.
Apple is about to have some major competition for its M3 chips with the Snapdragon X Elite
A major problem in the past for these SoC chips is that they run on ARM-based technology. A majority of Windows apps run on x86 instead, meaning many applications can’t run natively on the Snapdragon X Elite chips. This has proved majorly limiting so far, but the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite is looking to change this.
As touted by Qualcomm, a wide range of apps and programs will soon be Windows on ARM compatible. This, along with the further development of the technology, could be game-changing when it comes to the Snapdragon X Elite chips beating out the M3 from Apple.
The Snapdragon X Elite chips from Qualcomm are set to make their debut sometime in mid-2024. With this time fast approaching, we’re incredibly excited to see just what the SoC chip is capable of. Apple may finally get beaten at the game if these X Elite chips deliver.
