Upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon X SoCs aim to match Apple's M-series performance and efficiency

[midian182]

What just happened? Arm-based Windows laptops still aren't seen as a viable alternative to x86 machines in most people's eyes, but Qualcomm says its next SoC, the Snapdragon X, will mark an "inflection point for the PC industry." With claimed massive improvements in performance and efficiency, the Snapdragon X is being positioned as the PC's version of Apple's M-series chips.

Snapdragon X traces its roots back to Qualcomm's 2021 acquisition of chip startup Nuvia for $1.4 billion. The company was founded by former Apple engineers who had worked on Cupertino's A-series SoCs used in its iPhones and iPads.

Apple sued Nuvia co-founder and CEO Gerard Williams III in 2019 for poaching Apple employees. Last year, both Nuvia and Qualcomm were sued by Arm, which claimed a breach of license agreements and trademark infringement following the latter's acquisition of Nuvia.

The Snapdragon X branding will replace the Snapdragon 8cx series, a family whose flagship, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, was released back in 2021.

Qualcomm revealed virtually nothing about the Snapdragon X series beyond a teaser image with a tagline about the chips' arrival being "soon." However, it did confirm that the platform is based on the Oryon CPU technology from the Nuvia acquisition.

The Verge reports that the Snapdragon X chips will come with a neural processing unit made for on-device AI processing in small form factor devices. The feature is another hint that with these chips, Qualcomm is aiming squarely at Apple's M-series, which has its own version called a Neural Engine. The Snapdragon X series will also continue to feature 5G connectivity, something you won't find on M-series devices beyond the iPad.

Notebookcheck writes that earlier rumors indicate Qualcomm will initially release three Snapdragon X series processors to start with, codenamed SC8350, SC8370, and SC8380. They're thought to feature eight, ten, and twelve CPU cores, respectively, with the SC8380 expected to combine eight performance and four efficiency cores, much like the Apple M2 Max.

Expect to learn more at Snapdragon Summit, which takes place later this month.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/100449-qualcomm-upcoming-snapdragon-x-socs-aim-match-apple.html

 

[Nanochip]

Will consumers care when they could buy ryzen or meteor lake?

At the end of the day, while consumer choice is great, Qualcomm’s major issue is the windows on arm experience. If that experience is tangibly worse than using a native x86 chip, then most consumers will stick with x86, especially if intel and amd are using denser manufacturing nodes and have a focus on power efficiency.

But, if the windows on arm experience is great, then arm might do well. What would be interesting would be to see other arm vendors enter the ring, especially one that offers a socketed ARM cpu and a motherboard chipset (and pcie expansion) to go along with it (for the DIY market).

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Hopefully they turn out good, the battery life of ARM windows machines is fantastic but their performance is very....meh. Sometimes good, usually not so much.

It'd be great to get something as powerful as a M2 ultra in the windows/linux space.

 

[rmcrys]

Hopefully they turn out good, the battery life of ARM windows machines is fantastic but their performance is very....meh. Sometimes good, usually not so much.

It'd be great to get something as powerful as a M2 ultra in the windows/linux space.

As long as I can't use Windows on ARM the same way as I use with x86, I won't go ARM. For what? To "help" Qualcomm?

I want to buy a Surface Pro "ARM" and have better battery life, more gpu power than Intel chips and use 99.9% the same apps and accept eGPUs, including top be able to play my steam library. If I can't play decently or have a lot of limitations, I'll go Android. I already have a Samsung Tab S6 Lite with DeX and it works great for what I need to do on ARM.

 

[GoldenGoat]

It will be interesting to see what they can do. They might need to make their own version of Rosetta2 if they really want to compete with Intel on Windows. I don't expect Microsoft to do it at this point. Compatibility is important on PC. Personally, I would like to have a laptop that performs as well as Apple silicon and actually has a touch screen. Battery life is the main incentive for people to buy Arm, but I don't think everyone will sacrifice compatibility with software they currently use to gain battery life. And Qualcomm doesn't have the power of Apple to just make it happen. But if there is a really nice laptop that has decent software support then I would be interested next time I'm in the market for a laptop.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

But will it run a real OS for actual productivity or still just be Android? If I could at least run Linux on it then it would be nice.