Qualcomm Launches a 12-Core Laptop Processor to Rival the Apple M2 - Snapdragon X Elite 

So, we now know a bit more about how the new Snapdragon X Elite compares to other processors: Single-threaded CPU performance: Oryon 3227, M2 Max 2841, i9-13980HX 3192 at 70% less power than the i9. The two Intel processors on the slide at 06:25 are the i7-1355U and the i7-1360P The 14-core processor at 07:50 is the Intel i7-13800H The Oryon offers 50% faster peak multi-threaded CPU perf compared to the vanilla M2. The integrated GPU at 10:48 is Intel's GPU in the i7-13800H The integrated GPU at 11:22 is AMD's GPU in the Ryzen 9-7940HS

Finally, much needed competition to the pc market!

People don't understand how much pressure Intel is under. ARM is catching up real fast. And the web/phones are making x86 legacy baggage becoming less and less required. Good explanations. 👍👍

For those who don't know, Once upon a time Adreno was Radeon. Yes ATI RADEON !

I'm waiting for Asus to make an ROG tablet based on this. With like half a kilo of copper inside. Twelve 3.8Ghz cores? Yeah that would make any Google Play game run like a charm

0:35 Intro to Overview of Snapdragon X Elite 0:54 Custom Oryon CPU 2:16 Node: 4nm SoC, 12 high-perf cores 3:45 Perf: 2 cores boost up to 4.3 GHz 4:01 Arch: ArmV8 or ArmV9 unknown 4:46 Memory: LPDDR5X. 136 GB/s bw, 42MB cache 5:36 Shipping: Laptops/tablets with the chip avail mid-2024 6:34 Performance: 2x faster, 1/3rd the power (match 50W x86 w/ only 18W) 7:46 High power: fast as 95W x86 at only 35W 8:35 Best in class, up to 50% faster than ARM competitors (M2 base?) 9:31 GPU: 4.6 TFLOPS Adreno, 4K@120 HDR10, DirectX 12 10:39 GPU Perf: 2X faster than 40W comp, only 32W. Matching perf @ 10W 11:13 GPU High Power: 80% faster than 60W comp. Match perf @ 13W 11:41 AI: Hexagon NPU, 13B LLM on-device. 30 tok/s from 7B (3X faster than M1 Air) 13:48 AI TOPS: 45 (NPU) 15:12 Interfaces: PCI-e Gen4, NVMe, UFS 4.0. Video - 4K60 or 120 enc/dec. USB - 3x USB4, 2x 3.2 Gen2 16:25 Summary 17:38 Outro

What would make this really interesting would be if Framework or a third party made a drop in motherboard for the Framework 13" & 16" laptops.

I just want an SoC to rival dedicated GPUs in graphics. I know It's to much to ask for, but I want small and thin gaming laptops.

Saw headlines in my news feed, immediately opened RU-vid and went straight to Gary Explains! Another great video! Thanks mate!

I mean loosing to Intel's 10nm chips would be hilariously embarrassing at this point. But this looks neat but I think Qualcomm or Microsoft would still need to subsidize the first Windows on ARM Machines in order to get things going. It still hilarious how many Applications don't offer a native ARM64 build.

I've been waiting for this day ever since the company Nuvia was formed. I was impressed by the foresight of Qualcomm to acquire Nuvia and change their trajectory from server to client. I was even more intrigued by the law suit from ARM. Gérard Williams III former founder and CEO of Nuvia was a Fellow at ARM before joining Apple. All 3 founders of Nuvia are at the top of their game and a steal for Qualcomm. I'm confident the Snapdragon X Elite will deliver for client computing the efficiency smartphones have enjoyed for over a decade. Apple already showed us the possibilities available now Windows, Linux and Chrome OS get the same. 😊😊😊😊😊

You can see, that this is an older design, because of the PCIe Gen4. PCIe Gen6 is the newly made standard, now. And some boards with Gen5 are already on the market.

Whether its an SDXElite, or the previous videos SD8Gen3, I hope these end up in some SBC's or sub-NUC Fanless Desktop devices. Small, silent, efficient powerhouses.

Another great topic worth talking about...starting to really like this channel, again thank you for sharing all that you have, its appreciated, keep it going Sir, your ahead of the game on the issue being talk about...

Great analysis. Very informative summary.

The way this could work seamless is for Windows to have a x86 to Arm emulator as Apple made. Anyways, next year will have very good laptop cpus, both Intel and Qualcom will have interesting things to show.

At 17:01 (on top middle card), Qualcomm states that its new Adreno GPU's theoretical performance is 4.6 TFLOPS (unclear if FP32 though). If this is true, we'll get the equivalent of an RTX 2060 Mobile (~4.608 TFLOPS, FP32) or 14-cored M1 Pro (4.58 TFLOPS, which scores more than M2 and likely the same as to-be-announced M3) in raw performance! Very excited to see this coming!

Damn, Apple just went gangster on Qualcomm by just announcing their Mac event on 30th October to show off their insane M3 🎤🤭😂

I'm been waiting so long for like this from non-Apple company. So I hope to see this in laptop, tablet like Surface Pro X, Thinkpad. But sad part still small amount of apps for Windows ARM native available. But who knows.

Thank you. Excellent video. You did not mention any price points for any assumed devices utilizing it. Perhaps they are unsure of any at this point.

Exciting news. Thanks!

Some restrictions of this Oryon server originated CPU are only 4k/UHD displays, with 60p only. I hope for Thunderbolt, although using dual-use drives with USB 4 / Thunderbolt 3

It's great to see huge Npu performance. In PC it would be better for compression and decompression dedicated acceleration so that you compress/decompress on the fly. Finally av1 encode and decode 4k60.

i'm glad to see Qualcomm entering desktop/laptop market. The M1 chip is literally AT LEAST 4 years ahead of Intel and AMD

Great Video Professor ❤️ Enjoyed

The names of competitors which qualcomm compared to were mentioned in livestream version. They also compared single core score against m2 max and i9 13980hx and multicore comparision was against base m2

The Adreno 750 in the 8 gen 3 is already fire ! That's pure alien tech, with a 2 year lead on Apple in power efficinency Can't wait to see what the elite can do

All cores are to be performance cores, scale back some cores for efficiency. If you can fit such and such on a die then don't hold back - just throttle particular cores. It seems a half-way measure. Use all you've got.

What foundry are they going to use for this chip? Seeing the efficiency differences between the 8g1(samsung) and 8g1+(tsmc), I'd say that would be a huge factor.

Main reason for Intel's so called efficiency cores is to have better multicore performance. Where for mobile and Apple SoCs it is to actually have better battery life for handling very minor things at very low power. But it is still interesting Snapdragon X Elite doesn't have 2 efficiency cores or something to just handle those few minor tasks in the background.

Well. Were waiting.

I read the performance chart at around 6:45 to say that, when running at the sweet spot ~15W, the X Elite is twice as performant. And, at that wattage, the performance is comparable to the competitor's performance at ~50W. That is, trace both dotted lines. I don't read the chart as claiming the X Elite is twice as performant at ~50W.

Waiting for the day when we can have ARM CPU's in actual Desktop PC's. It would open up so much competition, Qualcomm, Mediatek, Samsung Exynos, Huawei and other small cpu companies will get to compete in that space. It will take few more years till we get there, more native ARM support, drivers support and x86 emulation on ARM still has a long way to go

So what does that security block do, is that the Qualcomm version of the Intels ME?

current gen laptop chassis and 3-4 of these processors would be great

I'm so happy I've been waiting for arm based SOCs without big.little for powerhouse performance. since 2018 when I first thought why is Noone making arm chips with only big cores and more than 4 cores like the pi4.

I don't think it matters if they use the arm8 or arm9. 12 superscalar Nubia arm cores is going to be a fast chip. Now, let's wait and see what they screwed up on it, but the specs look really good.

Hey Gary, any actual numbers about the number of transistors on this bad boy ?

Yes! Hopefully we will see an aarch64 Linux laptop that rivals the MacBook pro in battery life and performance. The only thing that will hold me back from buying an X powered laptop will be the build quality, which is historically low with PC laptops 😢

I'm upset! I was going to buy a new gaming/editing laptop after CES (January), but it looks like I might have to wait another 6 months lol. Great overview, you've got a new subscriber 👍

I wonder how far this will go into the future since Windows is planning on going ARM based in the future. I really hope if true, performance and power isn't compromised and also legacy software can be emulated or converted in some way.

I hope they put this SOC in a Chromebook plus.🎉

and batery and fast charging? and thunderbolt ?usb 5?

Great for competition and for us the consumers 🙂👍

I'm really enthusiastic about this. Especially after SiFive just laid off most of their staff

Great video! I'm waiting on this tech before buying something like a Steam Deck.

Bro its perfect for instaling linige os and and using androed emuletors

What I'm curious to know is do gaming laptops still need dedicated GPUs with these chip?

I kinda hope those chips will also be in Chromebooks so that they can be flashed with vanilla Linux!

Next we need a GPU that works similar to this , 4 to 5w tdp and atleast 1.5 TFLOPs would be absolutely amazing

Great Video I wonder compare to Intel vs amd vs M2 where does qualcomm stand ? And unique feture why people should go for it?

Galaxy Tab SX Ultra with a slightly downclocked version of this would be amazing

Which Arm custom chip better for handheld pc ?

Is the RAM built into the chip like on the Apple devices? In which case it won't be extendable. Does the GPU have everything needed for Gaming? Apple have just added Ray Tracing to the M3 chip to improve Games performance which doesn't seem to have been a big priority for Apple. Whereas a lot of Windows users interested in performance seem to want it for Gaming

Server loads can be significantly reduced by local AI, reducing server cooling, power, water usages. Android subsystem on Windows should be changed to main system. It is time for NPUs in pcs too, in the AI era.

Will we see these in 4x4 mini-pcs?

Hi Gary. Could you please do a comparative analysis of the Intel Meteor Lake platform versus Snapdragon Elite? (Both from architecture pov and performance benchmarks.)

I hope they put it in a mini pc.

16:06 is TB-support confirmed? AFAIK TB3-support is optional for USB4 hosts and peripherals

Finally it's going this way. Laptops need ARM so much.

If it is a former server chip does that mean we may get good linux support

I hope they put it on a SOC, like orange PI, with HDMI, USB, Ethernet, etc.

Does Snapdragon Ellite has Linux OS support?

i was expecting and awaiting that. i think microsoft has got to choose where to go with windows as it is still the OS of creators and gamers when not into apple - x64/arm/risc for the long term. i even think that intel with the 15 series - which is that massivly different - will be the last chance for x64 from a microsoft view. arm was a target for MS since the first surface hardware and the watts per power - combined with the media-specific hardware-encoders (see apple or intel arc) has to bring a big change in x64 or it will all end on arm or risc. at this time we are at a crossection... but in a few years our known x64 standard will be changed to sth. else. thanx for upping your audio levels finally in the video now - its really hard on some devices to listen - compared to other yt-channels or general content. no problem on a desktop ofc - but in my car i was lost with some of your videos. and still: gary for president (i write that since you started the channel - and i gdamn mean it :P even if you are in the UK) cheerz from germany mate

GPU has PS4 pro power literally, and it's made with newer processing, so that will be actually at Xbox Series S power so great for FHD game's, considering that it also will support RT like their mobile Snapdragons, more interesting is what the price of the devices will be

That total cache of 42MB is still 2MB short of what A17 Pro has, not even their M series.

IF. Qualcomm are to be believed, this should compete with 13900H while drawing less than half the power. That is huge, but it is curious they didn't showcase single threaded performance. I would like to see this compared to AMD 7840u as it is in the same power class, the elite will likely win in arm optimised apps but I wonder how small the deficit will be in x86 tasks. All in all, excited but disappointed it won't be releasing sooner.

Nvme gen 6 is coming out next year. Hopefully they update it

Now we need a proper OS for ARM non Apple laptops. A Windows natively ARM, a version of Android for laptops, etc.

has anyone announced using this in a laptop yet?

Computerbase indicates that it is based on Arm v8.7

I'd be surprised if it came even close to M1 in terms of performance and efficiency. The real trouble would be the application support for ARM.

The only way ARM can truly break into the PC market is by having a standardized BIOS. This will also open the door for RISC-V PCs and as a result, completely open-source computers.

It would be sweet if this chip came to the chrombook Plus..

Can't wait for this tech to trickle down to reasonably priced laptops and mini PCs

This looks amazing.

Microsoft perhaps can have a NUC like offering based on this chip to rival Apple and encourage more developers to adopt WoA.

I'm willing to buy an Surface ARM as soon as it gives good performance and all day battery. Don't care about even running all the programs. Would be awesome for browsing the internet.

@GaryExplains how likely do you think it is that this move from Qualcomm will spark a wide OS adoption? And in 10 years time everything, from laptops to cloud datacenter servers, will be ARM?

Wow! this is a beast (for the normal customer). Is there anything on this CPU, which need adaption from Linux to make use of it, fully?

We might start seeing this on portable windows gaming handhelds

Wow 2 uploads at once

Hopefully Framework wil make a X Elite laptop.

A somehow off-topic (or even "daydreaming", maybe?) question for you, Gary -- Do you think its (realistically) possible for a CPU to provide "High end desktop-tier" of performance with a power draw under the 1W mark? Thanks in advance.

One for sound, one for networking, one for GPU control, one for SSD, one for keyboard... Despite all the cores, it can still grind to a halt

I'm happy to hear about it but unfortunately in this case the software stack is more important than the hardware itself, and in this case apple unix based system is far more ripe than arm based PC with windows OS, and from the other side there's the good old x86_64 based Intel and AMD systems that running beautifully with windows.. which means this Qualcomm PC is going to be outran by the competition

Tensor Operation Per Second. How this will compare with the Nvidia tensor cores.

Well done Nuvia & Qualcomm👍

I bet I know what they are comparing to (at least for GPU). Blue line is Intel integrated graphics and orange line seems to be amd integrated graphics

Why couldn't we get E-cores by an under-clock and under-volt? Is the device running on battery? If yes - turn off 8 of the 12 cores and run 4 cores at 2.5GHz. Did the user just run a high-end task? If yes - crank it up and ignore the battery until we hit 40% charge.

Why are we switching to risc based CPUs for PCs? It is risc right?

I wounder if it is possible to install Linux on those laptops? Linux seems to be more advanced than Windows, thanks to OSS and ARM64 SBCs.

Cost ?

I think I’m missing something here. How is this chip relevant if Windows only runs well on x86? What architecture is this chip based on? If it’s ARM, isn’t Windows on ARM terrible?

Such a shame its laptop only. If I could get a standard ITX mobo with desktop X Elite in the socket and a dedicated GPU through PCIe, I would switch to ARM immediately.

I think it's up to MS now to optimize Windows to run well on ARM.

They did show a slide of it compared to the M2 Pro, beating it quite a bit.

This is chip is very good but I think that Apple's M3 is likely to be a better buy for me and it will come much sooner than this chip will. Even the M3 Mac mini which I'm looking forward to will come a few months before this hits the shelves.

Is Windows technically able to run on AArch64 instead of x86? If so, what's stopping Intel from leaving x86 behind?

I would love to see this SOC inside of a Samsung tablet. It could help them rival the iPad Pros in terms of performance and battery life