We now have more details about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon C chips. The processors were officially announced in May, but we did not have full specs or details at the time.
Snapdragon C chips are designed to power budget laptops that start around $300. Qualcomm has updated its product pages for the processors, including full specs.
The specs are promising and stack up well against offerings from competitors, such as the Intel N250. Qualcomm shared some favorable comparisons between Snapdragon C and Intel N250 that suggest Qualcomm’s new chip could compete very well in the budget laptop space.
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Snapdragon C specs and details
Snapdragon C promises up to 67% faster performance than Intel N250 according to Qualcomm. The biggest difference between the chips appeared in Cinebench MT testing, but Snapdragon C defeated Intel across a range of Qualcomm’s tests.
Those performance tests are when both chips are running on battery power, which leans in Qualcomm’s favor. Snapdragon processors often thrive in unplugged testing.
Qualcomm claims Snapdragon C delivers 106% better power efficiency during Netflix playback. Microsoft Teams (99% better) and YouTube (86% better) are both wins for Snapdragon C as well.
Power usage by idle apps is 39% better in power efficiency, according to Qualcomm.
|
CPU |
Qualcomm Kryo CPU (6nm) |
Row 0 – Cell 2 |
|
CPU cores |
8 |
Row 1 – Cell 2 |
|
CPU max clock speed |
3.0 GHz |
Row 2 – Cell 2 |
|
GPU |
Qualcomm Adreno |
Row 3 – Cell 2 |
|
NPU |
Qualcomm Hexagon |
Row 4 – Cell 2 |
|
Memory |
LPDDR5x |
Row 5 – Cell 2 |
|
Maximum memory |
16GB |
Row 6 – Cell 2 |
|
Wi-Fi |
Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6 |
Row 7 – Cell 2 |
|
Bluetooth |
Bluetooth 6.0 |
Row 8 – Cell 2 |
Snapdragon C has a dedicated NPU, which helps with AI tasks. I doubt AI usage will be heavy among budget laptop users, so CPU performance and other specs will likely be bigger factors for those shopping for affordable PCs.
Windows 11 on ARM has improved greatly when it comes to app compatibility, so that should not be as much of a concern as it would have been just a few years ago. For many people, app compatibility is no longer a concern for Windows 11 on ARM.
There are some legacy and enterprise apps that are not compatible with Snapdragon C and other ARM-based processors, but the list of the best native Windows on ARM apps continues to grow and includes big-name and niche apps.
For non-native apps, Microsoft’s Prism emulation has improved over the years as well. That means even apps running in emulation perform better.
What we still don’t know about Snapdragon C
The official specs of Snapdragon C are promising, as are the figures shared by Qualcomm. But there are still several key facts we do not know, some of which won’t be confirmed until laptops with the new chips launch.
We also need to know how the chips perform when laptops are plugged in and how that performance compares to that of Intel chips.
All of the claims about performance and efficiency come straight from Qualcomm, so we’ll need to see them verified independently.
Qualcomm has a good track record with claims like this. Benchmarks and comparisons shared with the press about previous chips proved accurate in real-world testing.
Qualcomm has always been bullish about how well its Snapdragon processors perform when unplugged compared to Intel’s chips. Qualcomm had an entire ad campaign highlighting differences on that front.
I’m confident that Snapdragon C chips will perform well and compete with similar chips from Intel, but we need concrete figures from the wild and hands-on experiences to know exactly how the new chips stack up.
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