Qualcomm held its press event, a new Snapdragon X series SoC appeared – iPon

Based on the plans so far, Qualcomm can launch the members of the Snapdragon X series on their conquering journey in the middle of 2024, which can give new impetus to the Windows on ARM platform. The preliminary performance data are certainly promising, but it will only become clear later how powerful the new products are based on a detailed comparison of the first independent tests.

The Snapdragon X Elite was already launched last October, this model represents the top, and according to rumors, a total of four versions will be made. There will also be a Snapdragon X Plus version, which can also be sold in four different designs, but this version has not yet been officially presented, but the situation finally changed yesterday.

As could be guessed based on the rumors, the newly announced Snapdragon X Plus can no longer use 12 Oryon processor cores, but only 10, which will result in a decrease in performance compared to the Elite version. The processor cores of the SoC unit made with TSMC’s 4 nm class production technology can tick at a maximum clock speed of 3.4 GHz, single or dual core boost function is not available in this case, which also reduces the maximum available performance.

The new SoC features a total of 42 MB of cache. The GPU is a Qualcomm Adreno series solution that can achieve a maximum computing power of 3.8 TFLOP/s, and an NPU is also part of the range, which in turn provides the same maximum computing power of 45 TOP/s as the Elite SoC companion on board. The processor cores, iGPU, and NPU can be accompanied by a maximum of 64 GB of LPDDR5X-8448 MHz on-board memory.

The new SoC unit can have Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7 support, as well as Bluetooth 5.4 support, thanks to Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800 application. The novelty carries a Qualcomm Spectra type ISP, thanks to which it can handle a camera with a resolution of up to 64 megapixels, if it is a single camera, while the resolution of each image sensor chip can be 36-36 megapixels for dual-camera systems, and of course also 4K HDR video recording. supported by the controller. A Snapdragon X65 5G modem is available for those devices that also offer a mobile internet connection.

Of course, in the case of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Super, performance-related claims cannot be left out either. Based on Qualcomm’s internal measurements, the Snapdragon X Plus is 10% faster than Apple’s M3 SoC unit in the GeekBench version 6.2 multi-threaded test, which doesn’t sound bad, but they didn’t say what it looks like under a single-threaded load. math. At the same time, the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H was also on the table, but again only the multi-threaded performance was tested.

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Compared to the Intel Meteor Lake SoC unit in question, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus is expected to be up to 37% faster at normalized performance, i.e. with the same consumption, while at peak performance the advantage of Qualcomm’s product is already 54%. In the Cinebench 2024 multithreaded test, according to Qualcomm’s team, Snapdragon X Plus is 28% faster than Intel’s product with the same consumption, while with the same performance, it consumes 39% less compared to its rival.

In the end, some single-wire measurements were also found, although this was already written on a card during a presentation, and not announced to the world, which is not really surprising based on the numbers. According to Qualcomm’s measurements, in the case of the Snapdragon X Plus, the single-thread test under Geekbench 6.2 shows 2400-2425 points, while under Cinebench 2024, this value is between 12800 and 13100 points. In comparison, the 13-inch version of the MacBook Air equipped with Apple’s M3 SoC unit scores 3082 points, while the 15-inch edition scores 3093 points in Geekbench 6.2, i.e. slower than Apple’s product.

Members of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X series are expected to actually launch in the middle of 2024, which means that the first notebooks and even compact desktop configurations that can already be built around the above-mentioned SoC units will appear. So far, it has not been revealed exactly when the normal launch will take place, but there is a good chance that it will be timed around Computex 2024, and the Snapdragon X-based products made by OEM partners will already be on display at Computex 2024.