Just a day after Intel unveiled its Lunar Lake laptop CPUs at IFA 2024, Qualcomm is retaliating with a brand new Snapdragon X Plus chip. This aptly named Snapdragon X Plus is an 8-core chip that reduces the core count seen on a wave of Snapdragon X Elite laptops, aiming to undercut the competition from Apple. Qualcomm claims that laptops equipped with this new CPU, which could potentially make it onto the list of the best laptops, are now available for purchase starting today.

The Snapdragon X Plus isn’t a new chip entirely; rather, it’s a new variation. The key difference lies right in its name. This CPU features 8 cores instead of 10, but Qualcomm is still using a 4nm process. It says the chip can reach up to 3.4GHz, with single-core boosts reaching up to 4GHz. Importantly, it still sports a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), enabling it to be featured in Copilot+ laptops with 45 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) of power. Laptops with this chip are expected to offer great battery life, a common trait we’ve seen in Qualcomm laptops like the new Dell XPS 13 9345.

Although this new chip might be slightly weaker than the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus and 12-core Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm asserts that it’s still far more powerful than the competition. The company claims that the chip delivers 108% better performance than the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U at 15 watts in multi-core performance and provides a 40% single-core advantage at 6W compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 8640U. Qualcomm often relies on these efficiency metrics to showcase what it can achieve at certain power levels. As we’ve witnessed with new x86 laptops like the Asus Zenbook S 16, the gap in peak performance figures isn’t as significant as Qualcomm suggests.

However, performance isn’t the sole draw here. Price is. Qualcomm says this new CPU “enables” Copilot+ laptops to fall within the $700 to $900 range. The choice of words is crucial here because it doesn’t mean these new laptops will precisely be between $700 and $900; the company is simply stating that such a price range is possible. Two of the very first laptops equipped with this chip that we know of, the Asus Vivobook S 15 and ProArt PZ13, are priced at $899 and $1,099 respectively.

Even if only a handful of laptops can reach as low as $700, it still gives Qualcomm a significant advantage over the competition from Apple. You would have to spend at least $1,000 on the MacBook Air, and that’s with the aging M2 chip. By offering Copilot+ laptops below that price point, especially with requirements like 16GB of RAM, Qualcomm could make a significant dent in the mainstream market.

Qualcomm says laptops with the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core will be available from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung, with “select devices” already available for purchase now.