Qualcomm responds to benchmark cheating allegations — Snapdragon X Elite/Plus benchmarks claimed to be fraudulent (Updated)

The notoriously confrontational tech site SemiAccurate claims that Qualcomm is cheating on the benchmarks of its new Snapdragon X Elite and Plus laptop processors, and Qualcomm has now responded to those accusations. The Snapdragon X Plus, announced yesterday, joins the previously announced X Elite in Qualcomm's upcoming processor lineup for Windows notebooks. The chips stand out as Qualcomm's first potentially competitive laptop processor against Apple, Intel, and AMD, and the best chance for Windows on Arm to take off. However, SemiAccurate.com claims that Qualcomm has been far from forthcoming with its curated benchmark results that have been presented to the press. 

SemiAccurate, claiming two "major" OEMs and a "deep source at Qualcomm" for their benchmark cheating claims, insists that Qualcomm benchmarks are impossible to recreate even by class-leading OEM developers. A Qualcomm representative sent Tom's Hardware an official comment on the matter, saying succinctly, "We stand behind our performance claims and are excited for consumers to get their hands on Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus devices soon.” Back at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit conference held last October, the public saw the first benchmarks of the forthcoming X Elite processors. These numbers, claimed to be clean by SemiAccurate's sources, were slower than expected, though the Qualcomm source claimed the software wasn't final. And those benchmarks were a complete black box — no one at the conference could see the settings used for testing, and vague charts showing performance against competitors Apple and Intel were unverifiable. 

After OEMs got their hands on the X Series chips, SemiAccurate claims no OEM has been able to replicate Qualcomm's touted test numbers. In fact, the site reports OEMs first saw numbers "far sub-50%" of the numbers Qualcomm claimed. Qualcomm engineers reportedly told SemiAccurate that they blamed poor optimization from Windows running on Arm, and poor cooling. Even after some time had passed and cooling could be improved, however, testers still reportedly never came close to Qualcomm's curated benchmarks, with one anonymous source comparing the Snapdragon X Elite to Intel Celeron chips.  SemiAccurate makes no claims about specifics of how Qualcomm is allegedly cheating its benchmark numbers. If "tier 1" OEMs are reportedly unable to even come close to recreating the X Series benchmarks on their own, wrongdoing by Qualcomm, the site alleges, must be the only other option.

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