Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon X Elite PC platform at the Snapdragon Summit 2023 in Hawaii this week. There has been a lot of talk about the claims that Qualcomm has made around the performance and power efficiency of this new chipset. Even the integrated GPU seems to be outperforming the current solutions from competitors.
We wondered whether it would be possible to hook up a dedicated or discrete GPU to the Snapdragon X Elite to provide even better graphics performance. That would obviously be necessary if this chipset is to power gaming-focused notebooks as well. We found out during the Q&A session with Qualcomm that it will indeed be possible for any manufacturer to use a dedicated GPU with the Snapdragon X Elite.
Qualcomm won't prevent OEMs from hooking up discrete GPUs
The question was answered comprehensively by Qualcomm's SVP of Compute Kedar Kondap and Nitin Kumar, Senior Director, Product Management during the Q&A session. It was made clear that there's nothing preventing an OEM from opting to use a discrete GPU alongside the Snapdragon X Elite. So Qualcomm is leaving it up to the manufacturers, even though it's highlighting the advanced capabilities of the integrated Adreno GPU in this chipset. They did mention that the first product launches we'll see will be with integrated GPUs.
Qualcomm says that it's not measuring up the integrated GPU against discrete options, that's why the GPU performance comparisons shown during the reveal were against integrated competitors. Nevertheless, the fact that this possibility exists is great, particularly as it relates to Samsung using the chipset in its future notebooks.
Samsung has confirmed that it's going to build PCs running Snapdragon X Elite. We have pointed out that this new chipset and the Galaxy Book 4 Ultra will be a match made in heaven.
Its predecessor, the current-gen Galaxy Book 3, utilizes an x86 Intel chipset alongside an NVIDIA RTX 4070 discrete GPU. Qualcomm making it possible for OEMs to opt for discrete GPUs alongside the Snapdragon X Elite will enable Samsung to use a discrete GPU if the Galaxy Book 4 Ultra were indeed to shift to this ARM-based processor.
Disclaimer: Qualcomm is hosting a large group of international media for the Snapdragon Summit 2023 from October 24-26 in Hawaii, including SamMobile. All opinions and analyses remain our own with Qualcomm receiving no advance preview or exercising any control over our coverage.
