2023-10-30 16:32:00
After two years of gestation, Qualcomm has just presented its Snapdragon X Elite, a new (very) high performance chip which promises to shake up Intel, AMD and even Apple in the field of computer processors.
Summary
Dominated for ages by Intel, which is still ahead of AMD in terms of sales volume – but not performance! –, the computer processor market experienced a real shock in 2020 when Apple entered the fray with its famous M1 chips, followed since by the M2 and soon by the M3 series. And for good reason, these all-in-one circuits that we commonly call SoC – for System on a Chip – completely changed the game by proving that the ARM architecture used in the world of mobile chips might be as efficient as, or even more efficient than, the traditional and aging x86 architecture of Intel and AMD processors while being more energy efficient. These are significant advantages in a market increasingly focused on mobility and energy efficiency – a quality which translates directly into the autonomy of devices – and which explain the great success of recent Macs and MacBooks.
© Adrian Branco
Obviously, Intel and AMD are not remaining idle in the face of this development, and the two companies are already preparing their next generation chips, both to stand up to Apple and its M family, and to meet the great challenge of AI, which will now be at the heart of all applications. But another major specialist in the field intends to come and play spoilsport in this ménage à trois: Qualcomm. During his show Snapdragon Summit 2023 which has just taken place from October 24 to 26 in Hawaii, the giant of SoCs for mobile devices has in fact presented a chip designed specifically for personal computers, and more particularly for Windows PCs: the Snapdragon X Elite. A very promising chip, which inaugurates an original design with great ambitions. After two years of gestation with the Nuvia teams – an innovative start-up created by former Apple engineers and acquired in 2021 – Qualcomm is finally giving birth to an ARM chip for PC which intends to do battle with future Meteor Lakes. from Intel and the M2 and M3 from Apple. A very high performance processor which materializes Qualcomm’s hopes following a start-up which lasted more than six years.
Snapdragon X Elite: ARM of war
Oryon has finally descended from its constellation! Under this code name inspired by the famous hunter from Greek mythology (with a Y), here comes the new high-power processor core from Qualcomm integrated into its new computer chip called Snapdragon X Elite. A “super heart” which carries within itself Qualcomm’s hopes of succeeding – finally!? – break into the very locked world of Windows laptops.
© Qualcomm
Because yes, the smartphone chip and telecom equipment giant Qualcomm is also a – discreet – player in PC chips. During the Computuex2017 trade show, three years before Apple, the American presented to the press its first ARM processor, a simple Snapdragon 835 smartphone that was slightly overclocked. For the record, it was not the first ARM processor for Windows: it was in fact Nvidia which was the first to design ARM chips for a special version of Windows 8 called Windows RT.
Since then, Qualcomm has multiplied the references: Snapdragon 850, then three more powerful chips – Snapdragon 8cx Gen 1, Gen 2 then Gen 3 in 2021 – as well as Snapdragon 7, 7C and 7C Gen 2 at the entry level. Qualcomm even seduced Microsoft for its Surface Pro X, by developing personalized versions of the 8cx – the SQ1 and SQ2. But without ever convincing.
Above all these chips today comes the Snapdragon X Elite. A processor that uses a new core and seems a bit once morest the grain in some areas – monolithic design and only one type of core. A chip that smells good leaves it or doubles: following six years of crossing the desert with sales so marginal that these chips never appear in the sales statistics pitting Intel once morest AMD, the Snapdragon X Elite must convince.
© Qualcomm
Snapdragon X Elite: 12 high-power cores
While Apple integrates two types of ARM cores in its M1 and M2 and Intel now offers three types of CPU cores (P-Cores, E-Cores, E-Cores LP) in its future Meteor Lake platform, Qualcomm, which yet knows these configurations in its mobile chips, has done the opposite for its Snapdragon X Elite. And therefore offers a monolithic chip engraved in 4 nm, organized around 12 identical high-power cores (P-Cores) clocked up to 3.8 GHz.
© Qualcomm
Organized into three clusters of four cores, these twelve cores have among them two cores (in clusters 1 and 2) capable of playing as a duo up to 4.3 GHz – enough to benefit from “boost shots”, to accelerate the launching applications in particular. Finally, these frequencies – and especially their behavior over time – will depend on the machines in which the processor will be integrated.
© Qualcomm
Because Qualcomm has only announced one chip, with no other variations for the moment. Coming from the world of mobiles, this Snapdragon is therefore quite capable of limiting its speed: it should be integrated into ultra-thin PCs without fans at 12 W, as well as on larger models at more than 45 W. Depending on the designs – extra thin without a fan or larger and with more thermal headroom – so performance will vary significantly. In addition, Qualcomm’s promises must be taken with a grain of salt: manufacturer figures are always chosen with care. But given the enthusiasm of the teams and the figures announced, the Snapdragon X Elite has, at least on the PowerPoint slides, something to seduce.
Snapdragon X Elite: better than Intel, AMD and Apple?
© Qualcomm
Managing LPDDR5X memory and benefiting from 42 MB of cache memory, the Snapdragon X Elite is a modern chip, offering a rather substantial memory bandwidth of 136 GB/s. Clearly, unlike its ancestors, it has the power to run applications much more powerful than in the past, even in the areas of digital creation… As long as the applications are compatible, compiled in ARM (and if possible optimized!). To show its credentials Qualcomm brought on stage a representative of the company Black Magic, which publishes the professional video editing software DaVinci, and who promised that an ARM version will therefore arrive on Windows next year.
© Adrian Branco
And in a move that we hardly know, Qualcomm has even made numerical promises in relation to specific references of Intel and Apple processors… Through a single test however: Geekbench 6.2 MultiThread. One of the GeekBench program tests that evaluates the multi-core performance of processors. And Qualcomm communicates not only on pure performance but also on energy efficiency – +50% better than the M2 at peak, 60% more efficient than a powerful Core i7-13800H, twice as powerful as a Core i7- 1360P.
© Qualcomm
In terms of GPUs, Qualcomm went up once morest both Intel and AMD under the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme program. And every time – obviously! – Qualcomm dominates the competition, particularly in terms of performance per watt. Displaying 4.6 TFLOPS, the equivalent of an Xbox Series S all the same, the GPU is essentially there to accelerate 3D, creative and other applications. When it comes to video games, Qualcomm plays it humble: “We have no pretensions in high-end PC gaming at this stage. That’s not the target of this chip, and it’s an area where we still have a lot of work to do. But we We’re already working a lot on more mainstream games.”, we were assured. Before presenting a small avalanche of games which shows that if Cyberpunk 2077 will wait, Qualcomm is hard at work.
A few days following its first presentation, Qualcomm released a set of comparative test results – benchamrks, in the jargon – which all highlight the performance of the Snapdragon M2), particularly with the Geekbench and Cinebench measurement utilities, in single core (ST) and, above all, in multicore (MT), with gains ranging from 50 to 100% in the best cases compared to the most advanced chip. lagging behind in the selection, in this case the “simple” M2. Certainly, we suspect that Qualcomm chose the most advantageous tests, avoiding contact with Apple’s most powerful chips, but these first results, even conducted on “prepared” platforms (the manufacturer used two portable PCs with different configurations), are rather attractive.
© Qualcomm
© Qualcomm
In fact, the GPU power of this first generation will mainly be used for display and creation software (like the aforementioned Da Vinci), particularly through the major asset that Qualcomm wants to highlight: AI. And here once more, the measurements carried out with Procyon AIUL’s special software which only works under Windows, gives the Snapdragon
© Qualcomm
Snapdragon X Elite: a chip designed for AI
© Qualcomm
As with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for next year’s high-end smartphones, Qualcomm is playing the artificial intelligence card hard. And rightly so, because apart from the fact that technology is on the rise, particularly through generative AI, Qualcomm is by far the player with the most experience in terms of dedicated AI processors. Facing it in the PC, AMD has nothing for the moment and Intel will introduce its first NPU integrated into a processor in its generation of Meteor Lake mobile processors which will arrive in early 2024.
© Qualcomm
With its Snapdragon 835 presented in 2017 (but actually on the market more than a year later), Qualcomm not only displays six years of AI know-how on PC, but above all an increase in performance of x100 over this period. To display, in the Snapdragon X Elite, a peak performance of 75 trillion AI operations per second (75 TOPS for teraoperations). Enough to run generative AI models with 13 billion parameters directly on the PC, without using the cloud. Enough to limit latency and, above all, protect our privacy a little.
© Qualcomm
To this AI power is added a small, discreet piece of chip from which we hope a lot will preserve the battery (and add an additional layer of security): the Sensing Hub. This “chip within a chip” integrates its own image processor (ISP), its own DSP, its own NPU and its own memory enclave. Able to monitor the webcam like the microphone(s), it is able to recognize your face without having your photo stolen or even constantly listen to your voice to react to it immediately. All in a secure manner (this is the role of the memory enclave) and with very low energy consumption compared to classic x86 chips. The limit being that, if in terms of AI as in terms of Sensing hub, if Qualcomm is well ahead of the competition, the good use of these technologies is, like the software ecosystem in general, not everything in his hands.
Snapdragon X Elite: all the advantages of mobile chips
If Qualcomm has still not managed to break into the Windows world in terms of market share (read further), the American still has strengths. Whether it concerns temperature release – all machines equipped with Snapdragon are inaudible – whether it concerns energy consumption or connectivity.
© Qualcomm
In this last area, Qualcomm is the undisputed master. Not only is it the only player to master the production of 5G modems, but its mobile 5G modems are – by far – the best on the market, on mobile as well as on PC. The problem being that this connectivity, increasingly key in smartphones, and which Qualcomm always highlights, is not really expected by the majority of the IT market. Laptops with modems are neglected by the general public, and only represent a marginal share of sales of professional devices. A relevant use is that of integration into education PCs in emerging countries where cellular coverage is denser and of better quality than Wi-Fi networks. But this market expects inexpensive chips like the Snapdragon 7C. Qualcomm swears, however, that professional demand is exploding. Sales will speak.
In addition to being at the cutting edge in terms of 5G with its X65 modem (the same as last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2), the Snapdragon X Elite is also perfectly up to date in Wi-Fi (compatibility 7, 6E and 6), as in Bluetooth (compatible with the new version 5.4 with the Snapdragon Sound audio technologies of smartphones). The PCs that will be equipped with it should therefore be ready for the future in terms of wireless communication.
Snapdragon X Elite: the cruel dependence on Microsoft
With a history of almost six years and such great promises, are you wondering why you haven’t (or very little) heard regarding laptops running a Snapdragon processor? The answer lies in many factors – weight of Intel and AMD to counter its entry into the market, few differentiating or relevant designs, sluggish beginnings (we had to wait for the 8cx to see decent performance), etc. . But the most important element can be summed up in one word: Microsoft.
© Adrian Branco
Launched at the time of Windows 10, the first processors did not have an effective x86 to ARM code “translator”, unlike the Rosetta 2 of Apple’s M1 Macs. Microsoft actually waited for Windows 11 (and several additional updates!) to make x64/ARM64 emulation available. The performance of Qualcomm chips was therefore burdened by emulation of non-native programs which either slowed down or simply prevented the execution of programs not compiled in ARM64.
If more and more programs are now compiled for ARM64 (Office, VLC, Edge, Firefox, Photoshop), notably thanks to the arrival of M1 on macOS, Qualcomm is still behind in terms of software compatibility. The area where AMD and Intel still have the advantage – in addition to their valuable links with PC manufacturers. Faced with Apple, Qualcomm is even more handicapped: if both use the same ARM instructions, Qualcomm is obliged to make a chip for Windows, when Apple has in its hands the very source code of macOS.
It therefore remains to be seen, not only if the Snapdragon what to shake up the market for the first time.
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