Since Snapdragon Summit 2018 last conference of Qualcomm comes the announcement of his Snapdragon 8cx SoC that will be manufactured in 7nm, a size that AMD already presented a few months ago in his conference Next Horizon. This SoC wants to win some market with Windows ARM products in the laptop sector with its emulation of the x86 processors while Intel remains blocked with the 14nm. The first generation of Windows ARM laptops has gone through quite poor results due to the inefficiency of the emulation and the high prices of its laptops, we will see if with this new SoC we have improvements in these aspects.
The new Snapdragon 8cx is much larger in size than the previous 855 and improves its specifications, on the one hand we have Kyro 495 CPU cores with four high-performance cores and another four low-power cores that integrate 10MB of L3 cache, doubling the previous model. In the graphic section we have an Adreno 680 Extreme GPU that supposedly is twice as fast and 60% more efficient since it has twice the bandwidth.
On this occasion Qualcomm has made it clear that it does not want to compete in brute power against the x86 (something obvious) and focuses its marketing on other features where they are strong. The efficiency of these new processors indicate that it will be 50% better than the low power series of Intel with 15W, but it is clear that it is also logical since Intel is still at 14nm and Qualcomm jumps at 7nm. On the other hand we are told that we will have up to 25 hours of battery life with fast charge Quick Charge 4+, something that is very good but we must bear in mind that this is in standby mode, because what consumes more in a laptop It is the screen. We also have an integrated X24 2Gbps Gigabit LE modem, 4 × 4 MIMO Wifi support and we have no news yet for support for 5G networks.
A product without a doubt very interesting and with a long way to go, but seeing the experience of the 1st generation of Windows ARM laptops we have serious doubts about its competitiveness, we will see what the future holds.
- The price of Windows ARM laptops with Qualcomm processor so far are not cheaper than those of Windows x86 more powerful.
- The low-power Intel / AMD processors also come close to ARMs and are 100% compatible with all apps and games.
- All x86 applications have limitations due to the emulation of ARM in efficiency and compatibility.
- We are limited in drivers and that blocks the gaming or professional uses in many aspects.
- Qualcomm controls the entire Windows ARM system and leaves no room for competition.
