Will the Snapdragon X Elite beat Apple’s M3? Microsoft seems to think so
Last year, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. These are chipsets designed for computers that are also meant to compete against Apple’s M-series of chipsets. It is unclear how they will perform, but according to a report from The Verge, Microsoft is pretty optimistic about them.
The report cites internal documents in which Microsoft is planning an event in Seattle next month. This event will see Microsoft show off a bunch of Arm-powered Windows laptops. The report also claims that Microsoft has planned a bunch of demos that will show how this chipset will be faster than Apple’s M3 MacBook Air.
In particular, the demo will focus on app emulation. Apple uses its Rosetta 2 software to help emulate x86 apps on its Arm-based computers. Microsoft plans to use the demo to show how the Snapdragon X Elite will have faster emulation than Rosetta 2. It will be interesting to see how the Snapdragon X Elite performs, so we’ll have to wait until next month for the details.
That being said, we doubt that Apple is too worried about this. This is largely due to the fact that Windows and macOS are very different platforms. Those who want or need to use macOS will not suddenly jump ship to Windows just because it’s faster. Those who are also locked into the Apple ecosystem probably won’t want to give it up as easily either. If anything, it could force Apple to step up their game, but we’ll have to wait and see.