Surface Pro 10 With Snapdragon X Plus Chip Leaks on Geekbench

After Microsoft launched its new Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for Business earlier this month, the company is expected to follow up with ARM-powered consumer versions in May. And while we already know that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chip will be powering these devices, a new Geekbench listing spotted by Windows Latest revealed a new Surface Pro 10 with a Snapdragon X Plus chip.

The Geekbench listing published on April 17 is for a device codenamed “OEMMN OEMMN,” which Windows Latest believes to be the consumer version of the Surface Pro 10. The Snapdragon X Plus chip on board, which has yet to be announced by Qualcomm, comes with 6 performance CPU cores and 4 efficiency cores. In comparison, we already know that the Snapdragon X Elite has 12 CPU cores instead of 10.

The Geekbench listing indicates a respectable 1903 Geekbench ML score, which measures CPU performance using DirectML, Microsoft’s low-level API for machine learning. If Microsoft could be using this Snapdragon X Plus chip for a mid-range version of the ARM-based Surface Pro 10, the Geekbench listing shows that this device still comes with 16GB of RAM, which is nice.

Microsoft is expected to reveal its new Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for consumers during a Surface an AI event on May 20, just a day before the company’s Build 2024 developer conference kicks off. According to Windows Central’s Zac Bowden, the Qualcomm-powered Surface Pro 10 will use the same design as the Intel Core Ultra version for business users released earlier this month, but there will be a new OLED display option.

Overall, Microsoft using ARM chips for its refreshed Surface Pro and Surface Laptop consumer lineup should be a big vote of confidence for Windows on ARM and Qualcomm’s latest chips. After years of lackluster offerings from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X Elite is expected to offer better performance than Apple’s M3 chip as well as the most recent Intel and AMD chipsets across CPU, GPU, and NPU.

According to recent findings from X user Albacore, AI Explorer, a new flagship AI feature coming with Windows 11 version 24H2 later this year, may require a PC with a Snapdragon X Elite chip. Microsoft could be making that choice because the NPU in Qualcomm’s chip is much more performant than what Intel and AMD currently offer in their latest x86 chips with integrated NPUs for “AI PCs.” However, Microsoft making AI Explorer exclusive to ARM devices may well blur the already confusing “AI PC” lines.