Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
The first Copilot+ PCs have made their way onto the shelves just a few days ago, and the initial tests are revealing some intriguing results. While the obvious aspects like performance and battery life are being thoroughly examined, one early tester has discovered something remarkable that hardly anyone is talking about, even Microsoft.
According to the TechTablets YouTube channel, the Snapdragon X Elite chip found in the Asus Vivobook S 15 is astonishing in that it can achieve nearly identical performance when running on battery as when it’s plugged in.
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Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite 3.4Ghz max on power Vs on battery. Finally, almost identical performance using 45W mode on the ASUS Vivobook S 15. ONLY a 3.17% drop in single core and 1.75% multicore performance VS AC just wow! 🤩 pic.twitter.com/lmwJZrwXJq

— TechTablets (@TechTabletscom) June 18, 2024

In particular, in Geekbench 6, it scores a 2,436 single-core mark when connected to power and a 2,360 single-core score while on battery. The multi-core scores are 14,650 when plugged in and 14,395 when on battery, which amounts to a mere 3.17% drop for single-core and 1.75% drop for multi-core.
In comparison, x86 CPUs can lose up to half of their performance when unplugged in the worst-case scenario. While one can force them to maintain higher performance, it comes at a significant cost to battery life, which was already weak to begin with. But with the Snapdragon chips, customers can enjoy enhanced unplugged performance by default without immediately draining the battery.
This implies that a new Window on Arm PC could be an excellent choice for those who use their laptops more often on the go rather than being docked. Early tests haven’t yet fully confirmed how Snapdragon battery life compares to that of Apple Silicon MacBooks, but the latter have always been praised for their performance on battery. Now, Windows machines have a worthy competitor in this regard.
Aside from the whole battery versus plugged-in aspect, these are also simply great scores overall. When compared to the Apple M3 chip, they fall short in single-core performance but come out on top in multi-core. For instance, the M3 MacBook Air 13-inch model has a 3,082 single-core score and a 12,087 multi-core score. In real-world usage, both chips will likely feel quite similar. So while Qualcomm may not have completely crushed the M3 chips as they claimed, they do seem to be at least matching them, which is no small feat.