Qualcomm Continues to Disrupt the PC Industry with the Addition of Snapdragon X Plus Platform

[TheLostSwede]

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today expands the leading Snapdragon X Series platform portfolio with Snapdragon X Plus. Snapdragon X Plus features the state-of-the-art Qualcomm Oryon CPU, a custom-integrated processor that delivers up to 37% faster CPU performance compared to competitors, while consuming up to 54% less power. This remarkable advancement in CPU performance sets a new standard in mobile computing, enabling users to accomplish more with greater efficiency. Snapdragon X Plus is also designed to meet the demands of on-device AI-driven applications, powered by the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU capable of 45 TOPS, making it the world's fastest NPU for laptops. This platform is a significant leap in computing innovation and is set to transform the PC industry.

"Snapdragon X Series platforms deliver leading experiences and are positioned to revolutionize the PC industry. Snapdragon X Plus will power AI-Supercharged PCs that enable even more users to excel as radical new AI experiences emerge in this period of rapid development and deployment," said Kedar Kondap, senior vice president and general manager of compute and gaming, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "By delivering leading CPU performance, AI capabilities, and power efficiency, we are once again pushing the boundaries of what is possible in mobile computing."




For the launch of the Snapdragon X Plus, Qualcomm Technologies demonstrated new AI-optimized applications and features running on the 45 TOPS NPU, including:

• Code generation in Visual Studio Code from Codegen, to assist programmers by generating fresh code instantly with on-device generative AI.
• Music generation in Audacity, using Riffusion on-device AI, to generate new music from prompts or pre-existing music.
• Live captions in OBS Studio, to provide automatic translation of 100 spoken languages into live captions in 100 languages using Whisper on-device, in real-time during livestreams.

OEMs are expected to launch PCs powered by Snapdragon X Plus alongside devices powered by Snapdragon X Elite starting mid-2024.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Noyand]

Better wait for third party reviews:
Qualcomm Is Cheating On Their Snapdragon X Elite/Pro Benchmarks - SemiAccurate

 

[AusWolf]

the state-of-the-art Qualcomm Oryon CPU, a custom-integrated processor that delivers up to 37% faster CPU performance compared to competitors, while consuming up to 54% less power.

That sounds awesome, but what are those competitors? Most people (myself included) know nothing about Qualcomm in the PC space.

 

[zmeul]

release it already and fail at it just as expected

 

[Carillon]

Finally! Now we know the 3 things NPUs can be used for

 

[P4-630]

Music generation in Audacity, using Riffusion on-device AI, to generate new music from prompts or pre-existing music.

You can create an album a day with this @remixedcat !...

 

[remixedcat]

You can create an album a day with this @remixedcat !...

not going to do that I prefer to make from scratch and also those ai scrape from other artists and anyone using this will be in serious trouble...

 

[maxfly]

"...are positioned to revolutionize the PC industry."

And how many times have we heard this nonsense?

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Better wait for third party reviews:
Qualcomm Is Cheating On Their Snapdragon X Elite/Pro Benchmarks - SemiAccurate

Wow, that’s pretty rough. If this thing plays out that badly, the only disrupting we might see is that of Qualcomms org chart. It’s one thing to be off by a bit, but “Celeron” performance will get them laughed off the stage. The fact that they pointed to cooling as a problem suggests these aren’t Apple M-class designs, which can and do run passively cooled.

 

[Onasi]

That sounds awesome, but what are those competitors? Most people (myself included) know nothing about Qualcomm in the PC space.

You know… competitors. Some nebulous ones. This is straight outta Apple playbook, to be honest, when you release some abstract performance numbers, compare them to… something without specifying and then show a cool large percentile advantage demonstrating your superiority. Don’t forget to add “up to” so that, when the independent benchmarks hit and the numbers are lower (often significantly), you can cover your ass and say that YOUR numbers are absolutely legit, just in a very, VERY specific scenario that involves obscure software that nobody heard of and Mercury in retrograde.

 

[RamiHaidafy]

I loved this bit in particular where they compared their 12-core processor with Apple's 8-core M3 in a multi-thread benchmark, instead of the M3 Pro, which is also a 12-core part.

What does that tell you?

 

[Denver]

I loved this bit in particular where they compared their 12-core processor with Apple's 8-core M3 in a multi-thread benchmark, instead of the M3 Pro, which is also a 12-core part.

What does that tell you?

View attachment 345035

It's the company that positions the product against the right rival (in fact, it's the price that does it).

But that doesn't matter, there are much darker problems hanging over Qualcomm as has already been mentioned here

 

[Garrus]

There's no disruption until they release a good product, something they haven't done yet lmao.

 

[Chaitanya]

Helicon and Zerene along with my other photo editing softwares do make heavy use of dGPU so unless this platform gets a half decent GPU along with native software support there is little to no reason to move to ARM. Also Battery life on these devices would be better than crappy Intel based laptops while being lighter than thin and lights.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

You know… competitors. Some nebulous ones. This is straight outta Apple playbook, to be honest, when you release some abstract performance numbers, compare them to… something without specifying and then show a cool large percentile advantage demonstrating your superiority. Don’t forget to add “up to” so that, when the independent benchmarks hit and the numbers are lower (often significantly), you can cover your ass and say that YOUR numbers are absolutely legit, just in a very, VERY specific scenario that involves obscure software that nobody heard of and Mercury in retrograde.

Apple actually does quite a bit better these days. If they show a performance slide, they will give the system specs, though usually after the pomp and circumstance keynotes. Also, their performance claims have been easily reproducible, including battery life. There was certainly a time when they greatly stretched the truth, but nothing like this, apparently.

I loved this bit in particular where they compared their 12-core processor with Apple's 8-core M3 in a multi-thread benchmark, instead of the M3 Pro, which is also a 12-core part.

What does that tell you?

View attachment 345035

It really comes down to equal pricing tiers. If you can get an QC X at the same price as the base M3, then okay, but if you gotta pay M3 Pro prices, it’s crap. Also, let’s see that single core slide. I bet it ain’t near as rosy.

 

[GoldenX]

With only a meh D3D12 driver and zero native Vulkan support, Qualcomm is about to find out the price of not spending a dime on drivers.

 

[champsilva]

Apple actually does quite a bit better these days. If they show a performance slide, they will give the system specs, though usually after the pomp and circumstance keynotes. Also, their performance claims have been easily reproducible, including battery life. There was certainly a time when they greatly stretched the truth, but nothing like this, apparently.


It really comes down to equal pricing tiers. If you can get an QC X at the same price as the base M3, then okay, but if you gotta pay M3 Pro prices, it’s crap. Also, let’s see that single core slide. I bet it ain’t near as rosy.

You can't compare apples to apple pies

You don't know the quality of the laptop itself and since apple only sell the whole product, you can't figure it out the chip price.

Ex: X Elite, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, but the chassi is crap, the trackpad is crack, the screen sucks.

It will be cheaper than apple performant counterpart, but is a better option?

We need to see premium laptops using X Elite and see how it compares.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Wow, that’s pretty rough. If this thing plays out that badly, the only disrupting we might see is that of Qualcomms org chart. It’s one thing to be off by a bit, but “Celeron” performance will get them laughed off the stage. The fact that they pointed to cooling as a problem suggests these aren’t Apple M-class designs, which can and do run passively cooled.

Semiaccurate is not a shadow of it's former self. I'd be just biding my time for actual decent reviewers like from here, or GN, Anandtech. Not saying this guy isn't right, but he often goes full attack mode on the slightest thing IMO. Sounds a lot like a rant.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Adreno is a distant last place in GPU features, Qualcomm is completely inept at doing PC graphics and they'll find it the hard way.

These Snapdragon chips haven't made a dent in the market yet. Tone deaf PR at best and utterly delusional at worst. Step it up, Big Q.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Anandtech has some additional benchmarks they were able to run under the watchful eye of QC reps. It was the thermally constrained thin and light part. Also curious is they downgraded the peak CPU clock and also memory clocks from last presentation. Not by a lot, but a bit surprising since usually companies don't even talk specs until they have confidence in production devices.

Qualcomm Intros Snapdragon X Plus, Details Complete Snapdragon X Launch Day Chip Stack

www.anandtech.com

 

[swaaye]

I think their mobile objectives are at odds with whatever this PC push is supposed to be. Trying to impress compared to the PC incumbents would take some massive investment.

Adreno was built by ATI guys. They reorganized the letters in Radeon. I wonder if any of them are still over there.

 

[AusWolf]

You know… competitors. Some nebulous ones. This is straight outta Apple playbook, to be honest, when you release some abstract performance numbers, compare them to… something without specifying and then show a cool large percentile advantage demonstrating your superiority. Don’t forget to add “up to” so that, when the independent benchmarks hit and the numbers are lower (often significantly), you can cover your ass and say that YOUR numbers are absolutely legit, just in a very, VERY specific scenario that involves obscure software that nobody heard of and Mercury in retrograde.

Yep. And that's how you "revolutionise the PC market".

 

[Bwaze]

"Disrupting the PC industry" is such a bold claim it's really laughable when the product falls short of the hype by a long shot.

I mean, we're used to labels "Industry Leader" from no-name startups, but Qualcomm's PR should know better.

 

[AusWolf]

Anandtech has some additional benchmarks they were able to run under the watchful eye of QC reps. It was the thermally constrained thin and light part. Also curious is they downgraded the peak CPU clock and also memory clocks from last presentation. Not by a lot, but a bit surprising since usually companies don't even talk specs until they have confidence in production devices.

Qualcomm Intros Snapdragon X Plus, Details Complete Snapdragon X Launch Day Chip Stack

www.anandtech.com

The first slide says "best in class CPU". Considering that there's nothing else in its class (as far as I'm aware), they're not lying.

Edit: typo

 

[stimpy88]

Why and how will this benefit anyone?

It's not faster.
It's not more efficient.
It's not compatible with all software.
Windows Arm is a joke, and you have still have to pay for it.
It can't do much more than flash games, or games at their lowest settings at 720p.
It's not cheaper.
It's not upgradable.

Why does it exist?