News Qualcomm teases Snapdragon X with no mention of Elite — news of second chip could be coming on April 24

[Admin]

With certain notebooks ready to be showcased by respective OEMs, Qualcomm has another announcement in the pipeline for April 24.

Qualcomm teases Snapdragon X with no mention of Elite — news of second chip could be coming on April 24 : Read more

 

[JamesJones44]

I keep seeing people compare the 12 core X Elite to the base M3 (8 core), but that's like comparing a 7950x to an Intel 14700K. Sure they are in the same ballpark, but no one would consider those two to be equivalent equals to each other like the 7950x and the 14900k would be.

The X Elite should be compared to the M3 Pro based on the rumors and the specs.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Is Qualcomm ready to become an active competitor against AMD and Intel for notebooks?

The bigger question is "Is Microsoft ready to make ARM based Windows a proper thing and not just Windows RT 2.0.

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

As of now, it is too early to claim how many SKUs or series will be available, let alone real-world performance

Leaks have pointed out these SKUs in the pipeline.

• Snapdragon X Elite X1E84100
• Snapdragon X Elite X1E80100
• Snapdragon X Elite X1E78100
• Snapdragon X Elite X1E76100
• Snapdragon X Plus X1P64100
• Snapdragon X Plus X1P62100
• Snapdragon X Plus X1P56100
• Snapdragon X Plus X1P40100

 

[JamesJones44]

The bigger question is "Is Microsoft ready to make ARM based Windows a proper thing and not just Windows RT 2.0.

IMO as someone who works with the Microsoft development stack (.NET) on an Apple Silicon Mac, the answer is they are ready this time. Back in the RT days compiling for ARM and x64 was a lot of work. Separate APIs, separate compilers, separate distribution and a somewhat different operating environment. These days for the mass majority of applications it will be write once, compile once and distribute once for both platforms with very little operating differences. This is even true outside of the .NET stack (Java, Go, Rust, etc. C compilers like LLVM, GNU, Clang, etc.), but a large majority of your day to day apps will use .NET (VB, C++, .NET, etc.) for Windows development and Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make ARM + x64 development seamless.

 

[shawman123]

I keep seeing people compare the 12 core X Elite to the base M3 (8 core), but that's like comparing a 7950x to an Intel 14700K. Sure they are in the same ballpark, but no one would consider those two to be equivalent equals to each other like the 7950x and the 14900k would be.

The X Elite should be compared to the M3 Pro based on the rumors and the specs.

We have to look at device price. If its priced at M3 level we have to compare to M3. If its as expensive as M3 Pro then it should be compared to that. Plus its not just performance, but efficiency need to be seen as well. I am hoping its out in retail and we have independent benchmarks run.

 

[Notton]

Looking at the part numbers from leaks, I am guessing the X Plus is a step down from X elite?

I hope they don't reduce the memory bus width. The X Elite is already at a paltry 136GB/s (128-bit, 8533)

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

IMO as someone who works with the Microsoft development stack (.NET) on an Apple Silicon Mac, the answer is they are ready this time. Back in the RT days compiling for ARM and x64 was a lot of work. Separate APIs, separate compilers, separate distribution and a somewhat different operating environment. These days for the mass majority of applications it will be write once, compile once and distribute once for both platforms with very little operating differences. This is even true outside of the .NET stack (Java, Go, Rust, etc. C compilers like LLVM, GNU, Clang, etc.), but a large majority of your day to day apps will use .NET (VB, C++, .NET, etc.) for Windows development and Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make ARM + x64 development seamless.

I've read a couple of early hands-on reviews from reputable sources and while the machines were in a fairly controlled environment, emulated software (that is, running through the translation layer) most appears to run smooth, so the primary thing will be price. If they follow the current gen of Snapdragon powered laptops then I don't hold out much hope for their success.

 

[Pierce2623]

Looking at the part numbers from leaks, I am guessing the X Plus is a step down from X elite?

I hope they don't reduce the memory bus width. The X Elite is already at a paltry 136GB/s (128-bit, 8533)

There’s no way they think true laptop parts can get by on a 64 bit bus like cellphone chips.

 

[kealii123]

IMO as someone who works with the Microsoft development stack (.NET) on an Apple Silicon Mac, the answer is they are ready this time. Back in the RT days compiling for ARM and x64 was a lot of work. Separate APIs, separate compilers, separate distribution and a somewhat different operating environment. These days for the mass majority of applications it will be write once, compile once and distribute once for both platforms with very little operating differences. This is even true outside of the .NET stack (Java, Go, Rust, etc. C compilers like LLVM, GNU, Clang, etc.), but a large majority of your day to day apps will use .NET (VB, C++, .NET, etc.) for Windows development and Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make ARM + x64 development seamless.

This is on devs to actually compile their applications for ARM on windows. Unless Qualcomm makes a huge splash (I'm skeptical, the performance will only be roughly comparable to Apple M2, vendors will put them in shoddy laptop chassis, but the price will be on Apple's level) devs won't bother.

 

[JamesJones44]

This is on devs to actually compile their applications for ARM on windows. Unless Qualcomm makes a huge splash (I'm skeptical, the performance will only be roughly comparable to Apple M2, vendors will put them in shoddy laptop chassis, but the price will be on Apple's level) devs won't bother.

It's no real work on the developer, they add ARM64v8 to the compile tuple when they say "dotnet build" and that's it. Developers will do it, they do it already for 10s of 1000s of products easily searchable in GitHub.

 

[JamesJones44]

We have to look at device price. If its priced at M3 level we have to compare to M3. If its as expensive as M3 Pro then it should be compared to that. Plus its not just performance, but efficiency need to be seen as well. I am hoping its out in retail and we have independent benchmarks run.

Maybe, but when we compare and benchmark a 14900k to a 7950x I rarely see price as a qualifier, though I will agree it plays a part.

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

Partially leaked specs. As expected, the PLUS variant sports only 10 oryon cores :

 

[kealii123]

It's no real work on the developer, they add ARM64v8 to the compile tuple when they say "dotnet build" and that's it. Developers will do it, they do it already for 10s of 1000s of products easily searchable in GitHub.

But they rarely do. It took Google what, 7 years to just "click the button"? Plus, who develops in .NET in 2024?

 

[JamesJones44]

But they rarely do. It took Google what, 7 years to just "click the button"? Plus, who develops in .NET in 2024?

IDK why Google took so long, Google is slow in a lot of areas, but Chrome has ran on ARM for years on other platforms (macOS, Android, etc.) so maybe they just forgot about Windows.

Who develops in .NET???? Are you kidding me? millions of people.

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#most-popular-technologies-language-prof

Even if you can only be bothered to learn scripting languages like JS or TS, React Native, Electron, Flutter, etc. have had ARM support for Windows for years now. Hell you can use WASM with LLVM and output Windows ARM for crying out loud.

I know some of you can't fathom this, but in the last 5 years every major language and platform our there has added native ARM support. You might as well get used to the idea that it's going to compete with x64 in every area.

 

[kealii123]

IDK why Google took so long, Google is slow in a lot of areas, but Chrome has ran on ARM for years on other platforms (macOS, Android, etc.) so maybe they just forgot about Windows.

Who develops in .NET???? Are you kidding me? millions of people.

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#most-popular-technologies-language-prof

Even if you can only be bothered to learn scripting languages like JS or TS, React Native, Electron, Flutter, etc. have had ARM support for Windows for years now. Hell you can use WASM with LLVM and output Windows ARM for crying out loud.

I know some of you can't fathom this, but in the last 5 years every major language and platform our there has added native ARM support. You might as well get used to the idea that it's going to compete with x64 in every area.

Ya, .NET is at the bottom of the list, with marketshare dropping. As horrific as it sounds, javascript (typescript), python, and C++ are the future of programming, with everything else being an edge case.

Even more dystopian, most desktop software moving forward is Electron, so now that Google has Chrome complied for ARM, I guess it isn't an issue anymore!

 

[JamesJones44]

Ya, .NET is at the bottom of the list, with marketshare dropping. As horrific as it sounds, javascript (typescript), python, and C++ are the future of programming, with everything else being an edge case.

JS/TS will never replace close to metal languages. No serious Database, OS, embedded solution is written in JavaScript and with WASM, JavaScript's popularity has actually been flat/falling since 2021. As for C++, that's just crazy talk, C, sure I don't think C is going anywhere, but there is a big push to get C++ out of the loop with languages like Rust. Finally C/C++ is part of the .NET stack.

At any rate, all of the popular JS wrappers and browsers support ARM, in fact Chromium has support ARM Windows for a while now so the whole Chrome browser thing is just Google being slow to release the browser (JS apps in Election for example run in Chromium, not Chrome itself). Python ARM integration is seamless, even C++ cross compilation is easy with all of the main stream compilers VS C++, GNU, Clang, etc.