Since their arrival on the market this summer, the new Snapdragon Qualcomm will now continue its offensive by focusing on the bottom of the price list, with the release of a new chip intended for entry-level devices at low prices.
Currently, the Snapdragon X lineup only includes three processors. At the top of the scale, we find the Elite model, designed for relatively high-end laptops. The mid-range is occupied by the two Plus models with 10 and 8 cores, slightly lower but more economical. But in an announcement relayed by XDA Developersthe brand has teased the arrival of a new level, one step below.
At present, Qualcomm has not yet focused on the technical specifications of this future model. We only know that it will be equipped with the same Neural Processing Unit (NPU) than its big brothers. In theory, it should therefore have the same capabilities for accelerating AI tasks. When it comes to raw performance, however, it’s a guessing game. XDA suggests that the latest addition to the Snapdragon six-core ; if necessary, it would be intended for fairly modest utility notebooks.
Towards very economical notebooks
Qualcomm, however, was a bit more vocal on pricing. As a reminder, the reference price for PCs running Snapdragon X Elite is set at $1000 (around €950). In practice, most of these machines are significantly more expensive, but this at least gives us a point of comparison. Indeed, this new chip targets computers starting at $600 (€570). We can therefore expect that these machines will be almost half the price of their high-end counterparts.
This is a particularly interesting price positioning, because the two historic giants of the CPU ecosystem have more or less deserted this price range . Neither Intel with its new Core Ultra, nor AMD with the latest batch of Ryzen laptops have released a latest generation processor that could compete with this entry-level mini-Snapdragon This is therefore a real opportunity for Qualcomm, which could well take advantage of it to gain a more than substantial market share in this segment.
It will therefore be very interesting to watch for the arrival of this new chip, which could be officially unveiled at CES next January. With this balanced and complete range of processors, all that will remain is to improve the compatibility that is still a bit wobbly, and Qualcomm will be perfectly positioned to become a true superpower in the Windows ecosystem.
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