Apple’s M4 series chips have scored another victory against the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, one of the most powerful chipsets on the market. As previously reported, the M4 Max outperformed Qualcomm chips in single-core and multi-core tests in Cinebench 2024. Now, the mid-range M4 Pro has clearly surpassed the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme in GPU performance.

In synthetic benchmarks conducted by ComputerBase, the M4 Pro outperformed its rival by up to 45 percent in 3DMark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited and 3DMark Solar Bar Unlimited.

In GPU testing, the M4 Pro outperforms the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme

3DMark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited

• Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme: 22,946 points
• M4 Pro: 33,434 points

3DMark Solar Bar Unlimited

• Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme: 5,687 points
• M4 Pro: 7,817 points

According to these results, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme’s reference design, despite being tested at higher power limits, falls short of Apple’s chip. This raises the possibility that versions used in future laptops may underperform.

An interesting detail is that Qualcomm’s new processor is manufactured using TSMC’s advanced 3nm N3P process. While it boasts a more advanced manufacturing technology than Apple’s M4 series on paper, this advantage hasn’t been reflected in real-world GPU performance.

Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme beats M4 Pro in CPU tests

Geekbench 6.3:

• Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme: Single-core 4,072 | Multi-core 23,693
• M4 Pro: Single-core 3,822 | Multi-core 22,550
• Snapdragon is 6.53% faster in single-core and 5.07% faster in multi-core.

Cinebench 2024:

• Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme: Single-core 161 | Multi-core 1,964
• M4 Pro: Single-core 161 | Multi-core 1,679

While the GPU score favors Apple, the CPU performance is different. Qualcomm’s chip surpassed the M4 Pro in both single-core and multi-core performance in Geekbench 6.

The results show that Snapdragon offers a significant advantage in CPU power, while Apple’s M4 Pro dominates the GPU. It’s noteworthy that despite Qualcomm’s powerful 18-core configuration, Apple’s M4 series, which has been on the market for nearly a year, lags behind.

This gap is expected to widen even further with Apple’s yet-to-be-announced M5 series. However, for now, the picture is clear: Snapdragon leads in CPU performance, while Apple Silicon leads in GPU performance.