Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Comes with No Efficiency Cores, All Performance, to Challenge Apple Silicon
In 2020, Apple introduced the M1, which, at the time, was so powerful and efficient that it seemingly left its competitors in the dust. Fast-forward to late 2022, when Qualcomm announced that its next round of desktop chips would rival Apple Silicon.
For this purpose, Qualcomm, along with its subsidiary Nuvia, jointly developed the custom Oryon cores based on the Phoenix design, which apparently will directly compete with Apple’s M-series of chips. The Elite X is set to be released next year.
Qualcomm’s First Desktop SoC, the Snapdragon Elite X Will Feature 12 High-Performance Cores, LPDDR5X Support & A Beastly Adreno GPU
Now, however, the specifications for Qualcomm’s first ARM PC platform SoC, the Snapdragon X Elite, have been revealed, courtesy of WindowsReport. The X Elite features a 12-core design, all of which apparently and surprisingly are high-performance Oryon cores. This does seem in line with what was leaked last November, but it’s surprising how Qualcomm has opted for a complete performance setup without any efficiency cores.
Not only that, but the Snapdragon X Elite will be getting up to 136GB/s memory bandwidth support for LPDDR5X. The Adreno GPU (unnamed) will be producing almost north of 4.6 TFLOPS of graphical prowess, capable of running a 4K triple monitor setup.
Other than that, the Elite X has it’s own Hexagon Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for on-board AI processing with a whopping 45 TOPS. For it’s premium lineup of notebooks, it’ll also feature a 5G modem, that’ll be Wi-Fi 7 capable, giving it an edge over the WiFi 6 capability of the current-gen Macs.
As for genAI, the Elite X’s neural network will contain over 13 billion parameters. While all of these specifications might seem intriguing at this point, it’s important to understand that the chip itself will be launching next year at earliest where it’ll be competing against the likes of M3, or even better.
Qualcomm however claims that its CPU and GPU is up to two times faster than x86 processors, and while this does seem to be more of a marketing gimmick, it’s possible that they’re comparing the Elite X to Intel Raptor Lake 96EU, which is 2.3 TFLOPS.
Qualcomm seems to be going all-in on raw-performance, but app compatibility for Windows and bringing developers on board will probably be challenging. In any case, the Snapdragon Summit next week will probably open up more about the company’s first desktop chip.
This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.
Source: windowsreport
