11 hours Ago By Paul Thurrott
Qualcomm came out swinging on the opening day of its Snapdragon Summit. And it did not mince words about Intel and Lunar Lake. According to the firm, its Arm-based Snapdragon X chip is superior to Lunar Lake in almost every way imaginable, and it pointed to specific instances in which Intel’s IFA announcement was misleading.
That said, Qualcomm acknowledged that Intel–and AMD–have an advantage in graphics performance, but it is apparently addressing with its next-generation chips. As you may recall, . We later learned that Intel pulled out the stops to deliver this new family of chips about three years earlier than originally expected thanks to it needing to meet Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC specifications.
That effort contributed to Intel’s financial woes this year, and the microprocessor giant loses money on each Lunar Lake chip it sells. Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift! .
Intel said that Lunar Lake was “the fastest silicon in the industry,” with “industry-defining x86 performance per watt,” with the fastest CPU core, fastest built-in GPU, most efficient x86 processor, “historic” performance per watt, and unmatched AI performance. And . During its IFA presentation, Intel compared Lunar Lake to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X again and again and again.
Today, Qualcomm said it was calling bull$%!# on Intel’s claims. OK, I’m paraphrasing. But it addressed several specific Intel claims and pointed out where the company misled the public about how well Lunar Lake competes with Snapdragon X.
Snapdragon X Elite outperforms the top Lunar Lake and AMD Zen 5 chips in both single-core and multi-core CPU performance, Qualcomm says, and contrary to Intel’s claims. In single core, the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 is 10 percent faster than the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 256V, and it achieves peak performance using 38 percent less power than Intel’s entry. Multi-core is even more dramatic.
The Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 is up to 52 percent faster than the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 256V, which needs 113 percent more power to achieve peak performance than the Qualcomm chip. Intel claimed that Lunar Lake had “the fastest cores, period,” Qualcomm points to Cinebench, Geekbench, and SPECint scores that all show the Snapdragon X Elite cores outperforming those in the Intel processor. Worse, it points to misleading Intel charts that show Lunar Lake being ahead.
Where Intel claimed a 6 percent gain over Snapdragon X in the Cinebench R24 single core test, for example, Qualcomm demonstrated that Intel is, in fact, behind Snapdragon, by about 7 percent. And in multi-core Snapdragon is an incredible 92 percent faster than Lunar Lake. It pointed to a similarly misleading chart demonstrating Lunar Lake’s superiority over Snapdragon X and AMD Zen 5 in the Geekbench 6 single-core test.
But AMD and Qualcomm both beat Intel in this measure as well, with Snapdragon coming out on top. Here, again, Snapdragon X toasts Lunar Lake, with a 44 percent performance advantage. (Snapdragon X is about 4 percent faster than Zen 5.
) Intel notably never even mentioned muti-core performance, Qualcomm added. The SPECrate2017 scores show similar gaps between Intel’s claims and reality. You get the idea: Where Intel was allegedly ahead of Qualcomm by as much as 56 percentage points based on an Intel chart, the Snapdragon X actually comes out ahead.
And in testing the chips side-by-side in the same PC chassis, the Snapdragon X Elite was 52 percent faster at peak power and 41 percent faster at equal power. AMD also beats Intel in this test, though it falls well short of Snapdragon. The biggest issue for Lunar Lake, perhaps, is that performance drops off dramatically when used on battery power.
Where Snapdragon provides close to peak performance on battery–it seems to drop off 7 to 13 percent under a few workloads but not at all or negligibly under most—Lunar Lake usually exhibits huge performance drop-offs of 15 to 56 percent, depending on the workload. Snapdragon X is up to 163 percent faster than Lunar Lake when tested in the same PC chassis, Qualcomm says. Intel also claimed that Lunar Lake somehow outperformed Snapdragon X on battery, but Qualcomm’s chip delivers 16 percent more battery life while not compromising performance.
Lunar Lake requires 24 to 37 percent more power to perform tasks like Teams video calls, stream YouTube videos, or use Microsoft 365 desktop apps than does Snapdragon X when tested in the same PC chassis. As for Intel’s NPU claims, Qualcomm notes that Lunar Lake requires 311 percent more power than Snapdragon X Elite to achieve that level of performance, and that Snapdragon X is faster and more efficient when used on battery power. And running the Procyon AI test, Lunar Lakes runs about 9 degrees Celsius–about 48 degrees Fahrenheit–hotter than Snapdragon X in the same PC chassis when plugged in, and about 7/44 degrees hotter on battery power, while taking a 20 percent performance hit.
In short, Qualcomm claims that its Snapdragon X Elite retains its leadership in CPU performance, on-battery performance, battery life, and NPU power and efficiency. Of course, Qualcomm didn’t address Intel’s one big performance advantage: GPU performance. For all the issues Intel’s had in recent years, GPU performance isn’t one of them: Lunar Lake is a major leap forward in this area over its predecessor, Meteor Lake, which was itself a major leap forward over previous-generation Core chips.
Qualcomm admitted as much, noting only that it focused on CPU performance and battery life with its first-generation Snapdragon X chips. And that GPU performance would be a focus in a coming generation of these chips. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon will address the Intel claims in .
Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 30 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the owner of and the host of three tech podcasts: with Leo Laporte and Richard Campbell, , and with Brad Sams. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows from 1999 to 2014 and the Major Domo of Thurrott.
com while at BWW Media Group from 2015 to 2023. You can reach Paul via , or . Join the crowd where the love of tech is real - become a Thurrott Premium Member today! Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday.
