Qualcomm Brings Its Cheaper Snapdragon X2 PC Chips to CES

Qualcomm hasn't yet shipped the Snapdragon X2 Elite processors it announced at its annual Snapdragon Summit in September 2025 (they're expected by June), but at CES 2026 the company launched its lower-end Snapdragon X2 Plus parts, which are slated to appear in laptops by the end of March. These may be more popular than they might otherwise have been because stepping back on the CPU (which people expect to be paired with lower-end components and less memory and storage capacities) can be a valid way to whittle down the price of increasingly expensive laptops.

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Like their previously announced siblings, the X2 Plus parts are fabricated using a 3-nm process node, down from 4nm for the earlier Snapdragon X series generation; for comparison, Apple's M series has been on 3nm since the M3, as has AMD's Ryzen AI Max, while Intel's Panther Lake generation is using the company's 2-nm 18A process. Generally, the smaller the process the denser you can pack the chip, and the smaller distances signals need to travel -- one reason companies can eke out faster clock speeds -- but at the risk of greater heat.

In addition to the new process size, the X2 Plus chips share a lot with the Elites, including the new 80 TOPS NPU AI accelerator (up from 45 TOPS) with support for the hot new FP8 data type, improved graphics, "multiday" battery life and other across-the-board performance improvements claimed by Qualcomm. Keep in mind that while Qualcomm has the fastest-rated PC chip NPU -- the Apple M5 has been estimated at 133 TOPS -- Qualcomm doesn't provide platform TOPS like Intel and AMD, so it's possible they may come out ahead for some types of AI operations.

The chip launch seems like an aside among the company's other announcements at the show, which go hard on robotics, a huge, relatively nascent market that Qualcomm is trying to gain a foothold in. And going low-key on laptops is unsurprising since "budget" news is rarely big at CES, plus the component shortages, which are driving up the prices of consumer systems, are expected to choke sales and supply of the shiny new models.