With Scary Fast event, Apple pulled a fast one on Qualcomm by launching the new M3 silicon

Snapdragon X Elite (Image credit: Qualcomm)

This not only gives Apple an advantage over Qualcomm but also over Nvidia and AMD, who are rumoured to be developing ARM chips for PCs. While Qualcomm is still showcasing benchmarks and comparisons with the M2 in presentations, Apple has already successfully introduced new M3-powered MacBook Pro and iMacs to the market, allowing people to try out and buy ahead of the holiday season.

This isn’t to suggest that Apple’s M3 chip is more powerful than the Snapdragon X Elite, or vice versa. The base M3 delivers a significant performance boost compared to previous Apple Silicon thanks to the new 3nm process node and improved CPU and GPU architectures. In fact, Apple claims that the new chips’ performance cores are up to 30 per cent faster compared to the M1. The M3 features 8 cores with 8 threads and reaches a maximum frequency of 3.70 GHz. The M3 retains the same nominal specs as the M2, whereas the M3 Pro maintains the same core count but has a different performance level and efficiency cores (six of each, versus eight performance and four efficiency cores) and supports up to 36GB of memory instead of 32GB. The Max version sees the most significant improvement, with 16 CPU cores (12 performance and 4 efficiency) and 40 GPU cores.

Apple Silicon M3 series of processors (Image credit: Apple)

On the other hand, the Snapdragon X Elite is built on a 4nm process node and incorporates 12 high-performance cores capable of reaching 3.8GHz. The X Elite’s Adreno GPU can deliver up to 4.6 teraflops of graphics processing power.

Both the M3 and X Elite are significantly faster, but their performance can vary depending on the tasks you are performing and the specific comparisons you make. Unlike Intel and AMD, which offer multiple SKUs for their chips (such as Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7, along with U-, P-, H-, and HX-series), Qualcomm has only one SKU: Snapdragon X Elite. This means the platform can range from low TDP (thermal design power) to very high, with or without fans. During a benchmarking session held for reporters last week, Qualcomm used two configurations for benchmarking: one with a maximum of 80W and a fan, reaching 4.3GHz for single-threaded tasks and 3.8GHz for multi-threaded tasks, and another one with 23W and a fan, hitting 4.0GHz for single-threaded tasks and 3.4GHz for multi-threaded tasks.

However, what’s often overlooked is how the M3 and X Elite chips represent a step toward new types of PCs. For Qualcomm, the victory lies in producing a chip that can finally compete with PCs powered by Intel and AMD, who have maintained a duopoly on the PC market for decades. The Windows ecosystem lacked an ARM-powered PC chip that could match Apple’s M-series processors, and the X Elite could fill that void. Additionally, it heavily leans on on-device AI, opening doors for new types of applications and interfaces.

Apple will indeed benefit if others follow suit and embrace the ARM architecture. This shows that Cupertino’s decision to transition from Intel to its own silicon for PCs three years ago was the right one. Both Apple and Qualcomm aim to free the PC market from the grip of Intel and transition to a computer-chip landscape based on the mobile-friendly ARM architecture while maintaining the raw performance that Intel-powered PCs are known for, coupled with long battery life and power efficiency.