Qualcomm Claims Snapdragon C Crushes Intel N250 On Battery Power
Qualcomm has finally detailed the specifications and performance metrics for its entry-tier Snapdragon C platform, setting its sights directly on the budget laptop market and $300 Windows PCs.
Targeted at students, families, small businesses, and frontline workers, Snapdragon C aims to establish a new performance benchmark for entry-level devices. Under the hood, the 6nm chip features an 8-core Qualcomm Kryo CPU reaching up to 3GHz on a single core and 2GHz across multi-core workloads, supported by 2MB of cache.
There's also an integrated Adreno A643 GPU operating at up to 900MHz with DirectX 12 support, alongside a dedicated Hexagon NPU to handle the AI stuff. It supports up to 16GB of LPDDR5/5X or LPDDR4X RAM, PCIe 3.0 NVMe storage, and Wi-Fi 6/6E with Bluetooth 6.0 via Qualcomm's FastConnect C6700.
To highlight the processor's capabilities, Qualcomm released battery-powered performance numbers comparing a Snapdragon C reference system against an Intel N250-powered laptop. According to Qualcomm's labs, the Snapdragon C delivers up to 67% faster multi-threaded performance on Cinebench and 50% faster single-threaded performance while running unplugged. Benchmark results also show a 44% advantage in single-threaded Geekbench, a 24% boost in multi-threaded Geekbench, and a 39% lead in web browsing responsiveness via Speedometer 3.1.
In addition to pure processing speed, Qualcomm also claims up to 2.1 times better power efficiency over its competitor, translating to lower total power draw across everyday applications. Snapdragon C achieved 106% better total power efficiency during YouTube video streaming, 86% better efficiency with Netflix on Edge, and up to 99% better efficiency in idle states. The company emphasized that the silicon's thermally efficient design allows laptop manufacturers to craft sleek, cool, and fanless PC form factors.
However, we have a couple of questions. Qualcomm's presented numbers were made while running on battery power, which leaves performance metrics under AC power unconfirmed. Furthermore, what of the NPU, as TOPS figures have not been disclosed?
Major OEM partners including Acer, ASUS, HP, and Lenovo are slated to launch Snapdragon C devices starting around the $300 price point, and in the year (or two) of jacked-up computer prices, these machines could help bring some normalcy back to affordable computing.
