The Breaker Times

A new era in Windows computing is here, built around Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC initiative and a few new chipsets. While the most hype is around artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and performance thanks to faster Neural Processing Units (NPUs), the biggest changes today are in performance and battery life. And that’s a good thing for Windows, because the platform has been struggling against Apple’s Silicon MacBooks that have very good performance and much better efficiency.

The new chipsets include Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300, and Intel’s Lunar Lake. Each chipset has an NPU that exceeds Microsoft’s 40 tera operations per second (TOPS) requirement, but while AMD focuses on performance, both Qualcomm and Intel are focused on efficiency. So, how does each chipset rank?

Performance

It’s still early, and so our review database isn’t fully fleshed out. That’s particularly true with Lunar Lake, as we’ve only reviewed two machines so far and Intel hasn’t rolled out the entire lineup. I’m going to focus on CPU performance here because none of the integrated GPUs in these chipsets are meaningful upgrades over their predecessors. That is, maybe they’re faster, but they’re not as fast as even entry-level discrete GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050.

None of them make for good gaming or creator laptops unless they feature discrete graphics. I’m also not going to talk about AI performance with the faster NPUs because, frankly, the benchmarks just aren’t there yet. And, discrete GPUs will be the performance champs regardless, with NPUs offering more efficient on-device AI rather than superfast AI performance.

Right now, AMD is in the lead among the chipsets we’ve reviewed. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chipset is very fast at CPU-intensive tasks, particularly in its multi-core performance. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite comes in a close second. Intel’s Core Ultra 7 285V comes in last place, but notably, it’s essentially a low-power version of the Lunar Lake lineup and, as we’ll see, it’s a lot stronger in efficiency than sheer performance.

Specifications are important here. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chipset has 12 cores and 24 threads, running at up to 5.1GHz. It’s a 28-watt chip that’s configurable between 15 watts and 54W, making it the most power-hungry of the new chipsets. Its 12 cores are apportioned between four full-size Zen 5 cores and eight Zen 5c cores that are more compact, but just as fast. So, it doesn’t have low-power cores. There are other versions of the chipset, but we’ve only reviewed the HX 370. The other major variant is the Ryzen AI 9 365 with 10 cores and 20 threads running at up to 5GHz.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X has several versions that we’ve tested, including variations of the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chipsets. The graphic below provides information on the full lineup. Qualcomm doesn’t publish the thermal design power (TDP), but from various sources, it varies from 23 watts for the Snapdragon X Plus to 45 watts nominal (up to 80 watts) for the Snapdragon X Elite. The efficiency with these chips is apparently highly variable based on how demanding the task is in a way that Lunar Lake and Apple’s M3 chipsets are not.

Intel Lunar Lake also has several iterations, With the Core Ultra 5 and 7 Series 2 versions running at a base TDP of 17 watts and the Core Ultra 9 Series 2 at a base TDP of 30 watts. Each chipset is configurable between 17W and 37W. Lunar Lake is the most direct replacement for Intel’s U-series Meteor Lake chipsets that runs at 15 watts. As you can see below, the 8-core (four Performance and four Low Power Efficient), 8-thread chipsets aren’t as fast as Intel’s Meteor Lake H-series chips that run aground 28W. Intel’s mobile Arrow Lake chipsets will take over there with, presumably, higher performance. And as we’ll see below, Lunar Lake does succeed in being more efficient.

It’s important to mention Apple’s M3 chipset as well, given that it’s the performance-efficiency leader that these Windows chipsets — at least Intel’s and Qualcomm’s — are aimed at defeating. For our purposes, we’re mostly talking about the base M3, which comes in both 8-core CPU/8-core GPU and 8-core/10-core GPU versions. Apple doesn’t publish much detailed information on things like TDP and clock speeds, but suffice it to say that the M3 offers a very solid combination of performance and efficiency. I’m only including those chipsets aimed at thin-and-light laptops, which excludes Apple’s M3 Pro and Max and Intel’s faster Meteor Lake chipsets.

From the laptops we’ve tested so far, the clear performance leaders are the AMD and Qualcomm chipsets. Intel’s Lunar Lake is a step up from Meteor Lake U-series, but it’s not impressive among today’s leaders. Apple’s M3 chipset is quick enough and it leads in single-core performance. The M4 will be faster yet.

Battery life

As mentioned above, efficiency is the name of the game, at least for Qualcomm and Intel. That’s where Apple Silicon has led the way, and where Windows laptops have lagged the most. Looking at early results, it looks like Intel’s Lunar Lake might indeed win out against Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X, but not quite against Apple’s M3. And the M4 is likely to be even more efficient.

Looking at this data, we see that the Asus Zenbook S 14 with the Intel Core Ultra 7 is the best overall performer in terms of battery life. I’ve been in touch with Asus and it’s possible that my ExpertBook P5 review unit had a problem that showed up in its web-browsing battery life. I’ll reserve judgment and update this information when I have a chance to test a new unit. I’ll also update this information as we add new machines to our database, and it’s important to note that these results don’t adjust for differences in display technology.

But going by the Zenbook S 14, which uses an OLED display, we see consistently excellent battery life not only in the least demanding video-looping test, as with Qualcomm, but also when running more intensive tasks like web browsing (still not very demanding) and churning through the Cinebench R24 multi-core benchmark. The AMD chipset isn’t meant to break any ground in efficiency, and so it’s in last place. And Intel’s Meteor Lake chipsets have performed similarly.

That leaves the Apple M3 chipset in first place, although not by as significant a margin, and Qualcomm showing that it’s most efficient when its CPU isn’t being pushed very hard. Apple’s lead will likely increase when the M4 MacBook Air is introduced, but Lunar Lake is by far the strongest chipset yet for Windows laptops.

This isn’t the entire story, not by a long shot. We’ll need to continue gathering data as we review more laptops with each chipset and  more chipsets, like Intel’s Arrow Lake mobile and Apple’s M4, roll out. For now, Windows laptops have never been better, and Intel is mostly leading that charge when it comes to the important element of battery life.