Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon X2 Plus Chip for Copilot+ PCs

Qualcomm has just unveiled its new Snapdragon X2 Plus chips, which will power a new wave of Copilot+ PCs arriving in the first half of 2026. The company had previously revealed its high-end X2 Elite series chips in September, and the new “Plus” versions will target more affordable devices.

As a reminder, Qualcomm’s premium Snapdragon X2 Elite chips will offer up to 18 CPU cores running at up to 5Ghz, a new Adreno GPU delivering a 2.3x increase in performance per watt and power efficiency over the previous generation, up to 228 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and an 80 TOPS NPU. The new Snapdragon X2 Plus chips retain the same NPU, but they will only offer up to 10 CPU cores with a maximum frequency of 4GHz, a less powerful Adreno GPU, and a maximum memory bandwidth of 152GB/s.

“The 3rd Gen Qualcomm Oryon CPU delivers up to 35% faster CPU single-core performance than the previous generation, while using 43% less power than the previous generation,” Qualcomm said today. “An integrated Qualcomm Hexagon NPU delivers 80 TOPS of AI performance for next-generation agentic experiences and seamless multitasking.”

The new Snapdragon X2 Plus chips also support Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, with the option to add a 5G modem. The new silicon will also support up to three 4K monitors that can be connected via a maximum of 3 USB 4.0 Type-C ports.

Qualcomm already set a high bar with its first-gen Snapdragon chips for PCs, and the X2 series promises solid performance gains with a level of power efficiency that Intel and AMD can’t match. However, the company may soon no longer be the exclusive supplier of ARM chips for Windows PCs, as both Mediatek and Nvidia are hard at work on their own offerings.