Qualcomm says that the Copilot+ PC is now all about power consumption

If you watched Qualcomm’s keynote presentation at Computex 2024, you already know that they marched on with their X Elite chips covering all the Copilot+ PC options with all the big manufacturers crowding to bring devices featuring their new SoC.

We knew and covered most of the topics way before Qualcomm’s representatives came to the stand, but one thing we didn’t discuss in particular was wattage and power consumption. We now know that AMD’s Ryzen AI-300 series tops Qualcomm X Elite with 50 TOPs vs. 45 TOPs. That’s great, because we finally have an AI-laptop alternative that can power Copilot+ PCs without the Arm architecture.

Qualcomm’s X Elite brings consumes 65% less power

However, now, the top selling point for the Qualcomm X Elite laptops is the power consumption. On their keynote presentation (go to 30:50), Qualcomm compared the X Elite CPUs to Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H, saying that their chipset brings up to 51% more computational CPU performance, and that it matches the competitor’s performance with 65% less power consumption.

That is one of the most important features you need from such chipsets and the reason is obvious. Power consumption translates to longer battery autonomy. If now, a (real scenario) laptop battery life ranges somewhere from four to eight hours, Qualcomm’s X Elite laptops, thanks to the SoC architecture, can go to multi-day battery life.

That would actually mean that you might go on a weekend-long holiday and forget your charger at home. These are just words until we get the clear numbers.

We couldn’t find data about Wattage consumption for the Qualcomm X Elite in the product documentation. However, we do know the consumption rate from the new AMD Ryzen AI-300 series CPUs and the peak power consumption is touted at 54W.

So, the battle will be in this department. If you’re reaching for an AI laptop in the following months, take a look at the battery life category in the tech specifications because they might be significantly different for AMD Ryzen or a Qualcomm X Elite laptop.

Will you buy a Qualcomm or an AMD laptop? Let’s talk about this in the comments below.