Comments Locked

39 Comments

Back to Article

  • ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    Small typo in the SoC chart. The 8cx Gen 3 is accidentally listed with A55 efficiency cores, even though correctly A78 in the body.

    //

    >In speaking with the carriers in the past couple of months, this way of doing things isn’t going to change soon. The attitude I got was that they’re comfortable extracting significant coin from those willing to pay.

    To be frank, sounds like Qualcomm's attitude in the modem & IP sphere. Sucks when it happens to you, eh, Qualcomm?

    And, unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath for NUVIA cores to be reasonably priced for all their Windows on Arm limitations. Qualcomm ostensibly charges out the nose for ancient WoA silicon: new silicon on a leading-edge node -> probably Apple pricing during its Intel days. Today, you can get an M1 laptop (with ~ADL 1T perf) for $999 MSRP and often $799 on any day ending in -Y.
  • milkywayer - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    So... it'll reach the Apple M1 level performance/efficiency in about 5 years?

    On the bright side Qualcomm will be extorting licensing fee from manufacturers stuck in Android eco system regardless of whatever crap it can produce.
  • ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    I don't see what their performance claims are: anybody can be "competitive" a year away from a launch presentation. M1? M-series? M1 Pro? M1 Max? M1 in a tablet?

    Hey, we're 15% slower, but we have a modem, so that means it's competitive! — Qualcomm in 2023

    And this isn't even the launch presentation (which will be full of unlabelled graphics, anyways). For a company with a weak custom core track record and a painful customized core track record, Qualcomm isn't one to underpromise and overdeliver.

    If Qualcomm cared, they wouldn't have neutered the cache on the SD888 for "die savings" or battered phone OEMs in the CDMA years or whose profits are 1/3 from patent licensing (!).
  • Frenetic Pony - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    "We're focusing on the experience, not the technology" states technology company.

    You guys aren't Apple, you don't make end products people buy directly, and you don't make hardware so good it makes the competition feel irrelevant in that category. I so much look forward to an emulated experience skipping the newest tech like the X2 or V1 cores for the same price, and judging by it's release window, same performance as non emulated cores where I can guarantee my software will work.
  • rmfx - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    Everyone made fun of USB for their terribly bad marketing with Gen 1 2 etc, and the genius at Qualcomm dive just into this... So confusing now.

    Also, the Nuvia cores take forever to come. the so-called revolution was less of a deal than planned or what?
  • mcu0730 - Thursday, December 30, 2021 - link

    What are you talking about? Nuvia just got acquired this year. Do you not understand how lon acquisitions take? Honestly, I am shocked we are seeing production ready Nuvia devices in 2022
  • mcu0730 - Thursday, December 30, 2021 - link

    What are you talking about? Nuvia just got acquired this year. Do you not understand how long acquisitions take? Honestly, I am shocked we are seeing production ready Nuvia devices in 2022
  • mode_13h - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link

    What's more shocking is how quickly Nuvia developed supposedly-competitive cores from when they were founded, *including* having to re-target them from server to mobile applications. That's what's really behind the timeframe, nothing to do with the acquisition, per se.
  • Silver5urfer - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    Okay I read through it very fast but did capture the essence. So this new ACPC is an always ol system. Basically a nightmare to put it simply. I will address it later. Next ofc this is only Windows 11 another massive block (but it won't matter since normies will buy that junk anyways). Next is their x86 performance claims + the 2023 market (including GPU, CPU and AI)

    Now to approach this one by one, first of all 5G mmWave is the key for these always connected machines, next I would refuse to own such a product their latest 8G1 SoC is having always ol camera. it's a POS NSA spybox no matter how I look at it. Next is their always on microphonics system this bundled along with Windows spybox is even more dangerous. Add that Pluton to this equation, M$ already does insane level of telemetry they even added them to Windows 7 and 8.1 retroactively through SSU and CU system. Only way to bypass is manually sort the updates and install for Windows 10 that's not an option because only if you can get a DISM based debloated OS with LTS release you can bypass the bloatware and spyware. 21H2 is still a mess in Win10LTS. I cannot and do not want to imagine how horrible Windows 11 is from user privacy standpoint to the OS, the former has TPM lock so many OEM devices will ship with TPM enabled along with Secure Boot, both of them allow Defender to scan the whole BIOS and entire PC. When we have Intel ME, AMD PSP, Qcomm TEE it's all again another blackbox security just like Apple SEP OS on that Secure Enclave processor. No No and Nope. As for Windows 11 it became a messy UX because of the people at helm who want desktop OS to die for this cluttered simplified dumbed down windows OS from Shell32 to Explorer and add the UWP store BS.

    Now the next part, the big and major thing. What is the performance of this thing ? Intel ADL P core Golden Coves trash Apple overhyped M1 processors completely leaving them in dust. Next is AMD's Ryzen 3DV will improve even further and rumors are pegging at BGA solution gets TSMC 6nm refresh that is Rembrandt, it will decimate any Apple or any ARM garbage to ash. Also ADL 11400F is so fast that it destroys all 4C8T CPUs. There's no way any ARM processor can keep up with that performance with BGA package and cTDP even with horrible throttling it will kill any ARM processor. Those are 2022 and what is Qcomm dreaming here ? which x86 they are competing against lol, there's 11th gen and crippled AMD BGA Zen Cezzane. Oh the emulation, there's simply no way this ARM processor can keep up. Add the new ARC iGPUs and Ampere, RDNA2.

    Finally this is a pure bga castrated product, no user customizations at all. It will be priced at $1000-2500 easily and for that anyone can own a 11th gen BGA or 12th gen BGA product with dGPU that would smash this to ashes. M1 got slaughtered in GPU performance against 3060L lol a crippled garbage quality silicon. This Adreno nonsense has no chance. Also Windows x86 PCs have SSD slots, NVMe slots, Wifi cards (now sadly most will solder) all user serviceable. Batteries are ofc those pesky packs which have limited life with any garbage laptops nowadays except Thinkpad top of the line or the Clevo LGA (sadly this company is leaving DTR scene because normies want thin and light throttling BIOS locked castrated GPU products with RGB). This one will have even more locked down BIOS code. To remind people of what is possible, Clevo machines Z170 got Custom BIOS which allowed them to run Coffeelake processors yeah that's right from 6th gen to 9th gen you can search for P870DM for more info. And also Maxwell to Turing GPUs too due to MXM slot. Meanwhile this garbage will at max live for 1-2 years in the market and get replaced again just like a smartphone. Amazing plan dumb Android OS down, get into the PC and dumb that down too.

    All in all, I will wait and see it get slaughtered by x86.
  • iphonebestgamephone - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    Back to the cave it is huh?
  • Silver5urfer - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    ARM is what going back to cave is = Locked down BGA soldered everything from NAND SSDs to WiFi, to the damn BIOS. There's no BIOS at all for these Qcomm parts. Apple's ARM processors and their Macs are too niche and their customization is zero. PC x86 Hardware is what evolving from the era of caveman. Keeping consumer in the dark is Apple's speciality. Same for Android OS now, with a lot of API blocks, AAB bundles, Blacklisting APIs, Storage API locks, HW Attested Safety net. To make things worse the Baseband blobs and other packages plus GNU GPL v2 based violations and warranty voids.

    On windows machines, non surface products. User can control most of the basic stuff. A small program like XTU lets user control every thing. You wanna talk something that is remotely even possible on any ARM device ? Adreno Control Panel is what Qcomm's new reveal is. However Adreno is nothing in front of RDNA2 or Ampere. There's no contest. Apple's own GPU got destroyed in 3D benches by a mere 3060L vs M1 Max (Check Anandtech's review). Their power only shows in dedicated compute IP blocks like Adobe first party optimization.
  • iphonebestgamephone - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    Nono, i was talking about the spying tech in everything.
  • flyingpants265 - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link

    ... Yeah?
  • Alexvrb - Sunday, January 2, 2022 - link

    He probably has an Android device in his pocket too. :P
  • ChrisGX - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    1. There is no such thing as ADL 11400F. The Intel Core i5-11400F is a Rocket Lake part that lacks a GPU.
    2. You can add the new ARC iGPU to some new Intel part but not the Intel Core i5-11400F. To talk in that way is ridiculous.
    3. The Core i5-11400F performs well but it isn't a CPU that can be used in the same contexts as the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. The Snapdragon SoC is very obviously meant for relatively low power laptops and comparing it to the Core i5-11400F is absurd. And, you pay an energy cost for the performance of the Core i5-11400F--65W TDP (before factoring in the unavoidable additional energy cost for the dGPU required to complement the bare bones 'F' part).
    4. In Perf/W terms it is the Core i5-11400F that gets slaughtered by the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. Perhaps some unnamed Intel part might fare better. For the record, though, the Apple M1 slaughters the Core i5-11400F in every way.
    5. No doubt, Qualcomm will try to get top dollar for its new compute SoC. And, no doubt, there will be customers for laptops equipped with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. If Qualcomm wants to ride on coattails of Apple's successful transition to ARM it is going to have to price its compute SoC sensibly.
  • Silver5urfer - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    It was a typo ADL means Alder Lake that's how Intel calls them just like SKL, KBL, CFL, CML, RKL, ADL. It's easy to get that, 12400F is what I mean. You couldn't understand that ?

    And that thing destroys 5600X at 65TDP since it's not K and locked chip on top cTDP is configurable which is what I mean. M1 doesn't slaughter anything mate, that garbage to destroyed by cheap BGA parts. M1 Pro is what I meant and Pro / Max SKUs start at $2000 price tag. For that cash you can get a 11800H based Laptop and a strong dGPU as well.
  • ChrisGX - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    Yes, I know what 'ADL' means. You are the one who is confused not me. Regarding the Core i5-12400F it has all the shortcomings I previously mentioned and its power requirements are going up! Even with a 15 - 25% performance increase over the Core i5-11400F (which is probably where things will fall) the Core i5-12400F will still offer energy efficiency that is atrociously bad.

    In case you haven't worked it out yet the Core i5-12400F would be a very poor choice for a laptop anyway, mate, because its a desktop processor! But, I guess we are talking about the Core i7-11800H now because, well, just because. That CPU is designed for laptops, thank goodness, and it is rated at 45W TDP. Phew...only twice the power consumption of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 or M1! And only USD$395. How can anyone fail to be attracted to that?
  • jayfang - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    What percentage of people swap CPU's? A Chromebook may never suit yourself, but they do suit millions of people. Think of Chromebook experience with Windows compatibility. Speed is nice, but not even critical.

    Just because "not fit for you" does not mean "not a great product".

    I've got both a Chromebook and a self-build built Linux workstation. Two different use cases & super happy with both devices. Chromebook on Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 would be a win.
  • SoftwareEngineer - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    If this is anywhere near the 85% CPU performance this will compete with 15Watt parts from AMD.
    The truth is most of your argument is "PC Master Race" whining. I've "Built" computers from the time when you PCs needed external cards for Drive controllers, Ports, ethernet, etc, etc... Integration is a GOOD THING. It's nice not needing to add 5 different cards to just get a basic system up and running.
    Plus, these are LAPTOP parts. NOT desktop...
    Whining about them being "SOCs" is just a bit silly. AMD rolled the IO die into their APU series. APU is just another way of saying SOC. The SPECIFIC reason given by AMD is you make monolithic APUs (SOCs), with higher levels of integration, is to reduce the power consumption caused by chip-to-chip communication. It takes more power to drive a signal off package to another chip/chiplet and laptop designs primary goal is manageable power consumption. It would be nice to have a 5950 in a laptop, but it's not really going to be a practical "laptop", it's going to be more of a portable desktop with a sub 2 hour battery life and bad temperature performance.

    These Qualcomm Part are fine for the average office worker who needs to run Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook. And way overkill if you do most of your work over an RDP or ssh connection to a server. I used an old junk desktop I salvaged from the IT department so I could work when my main system was down. If all you care about is gaming performance, they aren't for you. They are for the person who spends an hour commuting and needs to get work done while he's travelling. And the always online feature is also important when you're on call 24/7 for server maintenance. It sucks to have to rush to find the nearest coffee shop to login to a VPN so you can RDP into a server. The main problem with the Qualcomm based laptops has been price. This is where AMD absolutely dominates. Qualcomm wants top dollar for 20+ hour battery life, but most people are going to plug their laptop in when they go to sleep, so 20+ hour battery life is only so useful.

    If you're worried about "Being spied on" while you're using your computer, then maybe you shouldn't be trolling internet post? I personally know from working in a data center, we logged all traffic for all Emails, Webchats and phone calls into and out of the data centers on 5 different continents. You are being tracked, especially if you are commenting on a BLOG.
  • caribbeanblue - Friday, December 31, 2021 - link

    Please, shut it for the love of everyone.
  • mode_13h - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link

    > Also ADL 11400F is so fast that it destroys all 4C8T CPUs. There's no way any
    > ARM processor can keep up with that performance with BGA package and cTDP
    > even with horrible throttling it will kill any ARM processor.

    Even with the clarification that you're talking about an i5-12400F, the key point you're forgetting is on-battery performance. That's how Qualcomm is marketing this thing, and neither Intel nor AMD are very competitive with ARM on perf/W, not to mention Apple, specifically.
  • rani6656R - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link

    Mercury Credit Card is <a href="https://activationmycards.info/activate-mercury-cr... ">Credit Card on </a>a Mastercard issued by First Bank & Trust to its customers for buying items and paying for purchases anywhere it is accepted. Mercury card is generally classified as a middle-tier credit card which means that a person has to have a credit score of average to be qualifie
  • zamroni - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    When will Qualcomm learn that Ultrabook use cases doesn't need processor with on die dsp, cellular modem and ai?
    Haven't they look at highly praised apple m1?
  • skavi - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    "highly praised apple m1" has an "on die dsp" and "ai".

    Also, Macs have practically seamless tethering with iPhones (which I'd be willing to bet most Mac owners use). Apple is probably the only company with laptops and phones that people want to buy, a strong device integration story, and a competent software team.

    So it makes sense that integrated cellular could be a selling point on Windows.
  • Wereweeb - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    People only want to buy Apple stuff in the U.S.
  • Glaurung - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    Fact check: Over half of Apple's sales are outside the US.
  • ajp_anton - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    Which is to be expected, since over half of all humans are outside the US.
  • TerberculosisForgotHisPassword - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    Other comments seem to miss the point.

    This is not just Qualcomm making the windows M1 (2 years from now).

    This is not Qualcomm making the highest performing or safest, or best specced processor.

    This is Qualcomm positioning themselves as the SoC in the coming wave of chrome book and iPad (base, not pro) competitive windows machines.

    This is not the heart of a machine for the readers of this site. It’s the opening shot at a $300 USEFUL windows machine.

    I’m buying more Qualcomm stock.
  • skavi - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    Have you seen the pricing of previous 8cx machines?
  • cfenton - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link

    Exactly. These things would be fine in a $300 laptop that was actually good, but all the QC powered laptops I've seen have been average at best and more like $1000.
  • mode_13h - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link

    I'd *love* this at $300. Too bad it'll be no where remotely close to that. I think you have them confused with Mediatek.
  • ChrisGX - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    That "up to 85% faster CPU performance" likely applies to multi-threaded workloads--that would indicate a GB5 score of around 5800. We are seeing numbers in geekbench that are moving in that direction. In single threaded performance, however, I don't see an X1 core at 3GHz offering more than a slight improvement over the X1 core in the Snapdragon 888--perhaps 1180(ish) on GB5--which would be a 49% improvement over the Gen 2 part. Maybe, more performance than that can be coaxed out of the X1 core, but I wouldn't be expecting miracles.

    I don't think there have been a lot of serious comparisons between Snapdragon Compute and lower powered Intel Desktop (low end Tiger Lake mobility parts) parts that look deeply into graphics performance. The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 might offer enough to encourage reviewers to make those comparisons.

    https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?q=8cx+...
  • Alistair - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    at least they got rid of the A55 cores for the laptop/desktop parts, that's a big improvement!
  • shabby - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    What is it with the always connected fad? Is qualcomm giving away unlimited data sim cards with these laptops? The only thing these would be connected to would be wifi or maybe my wifi hotspot on my phone if i needed to grab something.
  • Alistair - Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - link

    exactly, my laptop is already always connected, always connected to wifi...
  • Wereweeb - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    These companies feed on your data like vampires. Always connected = always sending them data.
  • ajp_anton - Thursday, December 23, 2021 - link

    Even though the US has been especially bad about tethering and data plans, unfortunately it affects others as well. Since all the big software companies are US based, the software is written assuming cellular data is expensive. It's annoying enough to have to manually enable cellular data use in every app separately, but the worst part is software that just refuse to do certain stuff if not on Wifi.

    Also I assume the reason why laptops with cellular connectivity isn't very common yet is that one of the biggest markets have practically no use for it. Hope the US catches up soon so we can all have cellular enabled laptops. Sharing Wifi from my phone kills its battery.
  • mode_13h - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link

    > On top of this, it is worth noting that Qualcomm doesn’t actually
    > list what the architecture cores in any of its public materials

    Strange for a chip company not to list the chips specs. I guess they're trying to restrict this to OEMs under NDA. These sorts of details will eventually reach the public, even if not until hardware gets into reviewers' hands.

    > would put it at 22 hours. In my mind that feels like a slight regression, which might
    > be indicative that the A78 cores in idle consume more power than the A55 cores did

    Yup. This tallies with my thinking that you really want a couple ultra-efficient cores for idle/background stuff. It almost doesn't even matter how fast they are.

    > other hardware comes into play as well, such as the display and wireless connectivity.

    Okay, so I see myself throwing it into "airplane mode" when the data I have is local and I want to string out a charge. So much for "Always-Connected".

    The other thing I do to save power on my phone is disable location services, since apparently that uses a non-negligible amount of power.

    > Qualcomm confirmed that content creators will be able to post-process
    > video and audio for noise cancellation.

    Hmmm... I wonder if they'll provide OEMs any support in training models customized for their devices' microphone arrays.

    > Which makes recommending an 8cx Gen 3 platform in 2022 difficult given that on every
    > review, we’ll have to write a caveat of ‘watch out for the Nuvia designs coming 2023’.

    Not really. You simply compare it to other solutions currently on the market. That caveat is a mere footnote for those dipping a toe in the market who can afford to wait another year. Many laptop buyers don't have that luxury.

    For me, it really comes down to price (and Linux support). If machines with this SoC (or a slightly cut-back version) are priced attractively, I could see myself with one. Otherwise, I'll stay in x86 land a bit longer.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now