Snapdragon X2 Elite could bring serious muscle to Samsung’s next ARM laptop

Qualcomm provided a much-needed shot in the arm, pun intended, for ARM-based Windows laptops with the Snapdragon X Elite. The chipset introduced Qualcomm's custom Oryon cores, with a claimed 2x faster CPU and GPU performance compared to similar x86 platforms.

Samsung was confirmed among the many OEMs that would eventually use this chip to bring ARM-based Windows laptops to market. It launched the Snapdragon X Elite-powered Galaxy Book 4 Edge last year, and that laptop's successor could pack a serious punch if rumors about the Snapdragon X2 Elite are true.

The Snapdragon X2 Elite will take the baton from the Snapdragon X Elite. Rumors have indicated that Qualcomm is testing an 18-core configuration of the Snapdragon X2 Elite. If true, this would be a serious upgrade over the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite, with 8 out of the 12 cores being focused on high performance.

The chipset may also support up to 64GB of memory capacity, which will be the same as its predecessor. However, the Snapdragon X Elite supports LPDDR5x memory whereas the Snapdragon X2 Elite could support the latest LPDDR6 memory standard with a potentially higher memory bandwidth than the 136GB/s of its predecessor.

What configurations the next Galaxy Book Edge supports will ultimately depend on Samsung. It configured the Snapdragon X Elite with 16GB RAM on the Galaxy Book 4 Edge.

While the company hasn't confirmed when this chipset will be announced, Qualcomm did confirm recently that the Snapdragon Summit 2025 kicks off on September 23. So if the Snapdragon X2 Elite is due this year, Qualcomm's marquee event is where it'll be unveiled.