News $700 Snapdragon X PCs will be available starting next year, says Qualcomm CEO

[Admin]

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says that Snapdragon X PCs priced at $700 are set to arrive next year, allowing more people to get their hands on Windows on Arm.

$700 Snapdragon X PCs will be available starting next year, says Qualcomm CEO : Read more

 

[Notton]

It's actually really easy to hit that $700 price point
Just look at what an Acer Aspire 3 uses.
1080p, 300 nit, 60hz IPS screen with good enough for office color accuracy
Use a plastic chassis
Omit thunderbolt, or anything faster than a 10Gbps USB connection
Use a an older and cheaper i5-1135G7, or R5-5700U with DDR4 SODIMM
Stick to a smaller battery size

Since X Elite (or more like X Plus) is stuck with LPDDR5X, use a slower and cheaper 5600~6400.

 

[kealii123]

It's actually really easy to hit that $700 price point
Just look at what an Acer Aspire 3 uses.
1080p, 300 nit, 60hz IPS screen with good enough for office color accuracy
Use a plastic chassis
Omit thunderbolt, or anything faster than a 10Gbps USB connection
Use a an older and cheaper i5-1135G7, or R5-5700U with DDR4 SODIMM
Stick to a smaller battery size

Since X Elite (or more like X Plus) is stuck with LPDDR5X, use a slower and cheaper 5600~6400.

The RAM for x elite chips I think is on the SoC, like a phone chip or Apple Silicon, so you can't just "spec cheaper RAM".

That being said, Qualcomm is charging vendors half of what AMD and Intel do, plus its rumored that AMD has increased their laptop chip prices to vendors by nearly $100 for their Ryzen AI 300 CPUs. Acer could take their Aspire 3, just swap the main board with Qualcomm and sell it for less with the same margins.

 

[kealii123]

Other than the low end, sub $900 market, my hope for Qualcomm chips is dead. Their performance is about on par with Apple's M3 and lowest end M3 Pro, but can't pace the M3 Max, plus M4 is around the corner. As much as I hate Apple and will never own an iphone, heres why its just better to stick with macbooks:

1. Gaming on Qualcomm is years away. Its maybe slightly better than gaming in macOS
2. MacOS sucks, has its frustrations, but Windows 11 has become far worse and has devolved into an adware/bloatware/spyware OS
3. Macbook chassis are better than 99% of anything from Windows vendors. Macbook Pro's MiniLED are better than even the best OLED screens. They sacrifice a tiny bit of color & saturation, but can hit over 1,000 nits to give true HDR. I can't find a single OLED laptop screen that reliably hits 500 nits. MiniLED also can't burn in. The only real downside to macbook pro displays is the dumb notch. Macbook touchpads are still the best. Speakers are still the best. Keyboards are good enough. I could go on.

 

[ezst036]

These will make great little Linux workstations, I hope Qualcomm starts ramping up the motherboards and chips people can purchase.

 

[bit_user]

Other than the low end, sub $900 market, my hope for Qualcomm chips is dead. Their performance is about on par with Apple's M3 and lowest end M3 Pro, but can't pace the M3 Max, plus M4 is around the corner.

Since it's their first CPU, the improvements in next year's model should be substantial. With M3 Max, you're also comparing against a wider memory interface, which I expect Qualcomm to have an answer for, in next gen.

 

[kealii123]

Since it's their first CPU, the improvements in next year's model should be substantial. With M3 Max, you're also comparing against a wider memory interface, which I expect Qualcomm to have an answer for, in next gen.

I'm not hopeful because Qualcomm over promised way too hard. Also, Apple Silicon iGPUs are still significantly ahead of X Elite. More than a single generation.

 

[ThomasKinsley]

I'm not hopeful because Qualcomm over promised way too hard. Also, Apple Silicon iGPUs are still significantly ahead of X Elite. More than a single generation.

Never go by a company's promises. A $700 ARM chip is an excellent value proposition for budget Windows laptop users who've long had to endure crummy battery life on hot and power hungry x86 processors posing as efficient laptop chips.

 

[Notton]

The RAM for x elite chips I think is on the SoC, like a phone chip or Apple Silicon, so you can't just "spec cheaper RAM".

SoC? It looks like a regular laptop mobo to me.
That is a far cry from what the RAM looks like on M3 or Lunar Lake
https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x-elite-motherboard-in-asus-vivobook-s-15-pictured/