Sunday, January 17th 2021

Qualcomm Reportedly Developing Apple M1 Competitor Dubbed Snapdragon SC8280

by
Uskompuf
 Discuss (10 Comments)
Qualcomm is no stranger to developing ARM-based computer processors having released the Snapdragon 8cx and more recently the 8cx Gen 2, however they pale in comparison to Apple's recently releases 5 nm M1 chip. Qualcomm has acknowledged that Apple's latest silicon is a sign of where the future of computing is going and it would seem they have been preparing a competitor. In a new report from WinFuture it is revealed that Qualcomm has been developing a new SOC with internal model number SC8280 as a successor to the 8cx Gen 2.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon SC8280 was found in two configurations one with 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM while the other was coupled with 32 GB of LPDDR4X memory. This is double what Apple offers with the M1 chip which is only available in 8 GB and 16 GB LPDDR4X configurations. The chip has also seen a 13% die size increase coming in at 20 mm x 17 mm up from the 20 mm x 15 mm on the 8cx Gen 2. This new processor is still under development and it is yet to been seen how it will compare with the M1 or the rumored 12-core Apple processor.
Source: WinFuture

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10 Comments on Qualcomm Reportedly Developing Apple M1 Competitor Dubbed Snapdragon SC8280

#1
r9
And it begins ...
Posted on Reply
#2
Verpal
Interesting, so Qualcomm is betting Windows on ARM become a better and more competitive operating system then?

What makes Apple M1 good isn't the hardware alone, but software support, MacOS, and x64 simulation.
Posted on Reply
#3
crubino
I believe this Qualcomm Snapdragon can't compete Apple M1, since they still depend on Windows OS (Microsoft). It won't get better optimization like Apple M1 with Mac OS which fully control in Apple hand.
It would be like Snapdragon in Android, with overkill RAM and plenty amount of cores, but hardly get compete with iOS + Apple Bionic performance even Apple devices have lower RAM and less cores (but high optimized since fully control by Apple).
Posted on Reply
#4
watzupken
crubinoI believe this Qualcomm Snapdragon can't compete Apple M1, since they still depend on Windows OS (Microsoft). It won't get better optimization like Apple M1 with Mac OS which fully control in Apple hand.
It would be like Snapdragon in Android, with overkill RAM and plenty amount of cores, but hardly get compete with iOS + Apple Bionic performance even Apple devices have lower RAM and less cores (but high optimized since fully control by Apple).
I agree. The benefit for Apple is that they are in control of both the software and hardware which allows for a tight integration. This is an advantage that the rest of the players don't have. The worst part is everyone will run in their own direction, i.e. Qualcomm, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Samsung, etc, will create their own ARM based chips to run on WIndows just like how they are doing on Android. So eventually it will end up badly fragmented.
Posted on Reply
#5
1d10t
crubinoI believe this Qualcomm Snapdragon can't compete Apple M1, since they still depend on Windows OS (Microsoft). It won't get better optimization like Apple M1 with Mac OS which fully control in Apple hand.
It would be like Snapdragon in Android, with overkill RAM and plenty amount of cores, but hardly get compete with iOS + Apple Bionic performance even Apple devices have lower RAM and less cores (but high optimized since fully control by Apple).
Didn't M$ got planned to have their own ARM SoC?
www.techpowerup.com/276214/microsoft-is-engineering-custom-processors-for-servers-and-surface-pcs
If these material realized, all hardware maker got cold shoulder from software maker :D
Posted on Reply
#6
silentbogo
Funny, just last night I was watching a piece on Qualcomm's Nuvia acquisition.
If some of you aren't aware, Nuvia was founded by former Apple's chief CPU architect.
Posted on Reply
#7
Darmok N Jalad
It’s a welcome sign of more competition. It is being demonstrated that ARM-based hardware has become more than fast enough for many users, so while the added performance is nice, the biggest benefit is the massive leap in energy efficiency and battery life. I would love to see something close to the performance and efficiency of the M1 in a SOC that can run Linux. Linux is a long way from running on the M1, thanks in large part to the custom Apple GPU.
Posted on Reply
#8
Wirko
watzupkenI agree. The benefit for Apple is that they are in control of both the software and hardware which allows for a tight integration. This is an advantage that the rest of the players don't have. The worst part is everyone will run in their own direction, i.e. Qualcomm, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Samsung, etc, will create their own ARM based chips to run on WIndows just like how they are doing on Android. So eventually it will end up badly fragmented.
This stuff about Apple's advantage and other big guys' disadvantage gets repeated over and over and over like a mantra. I can't fully buy it. TPU reported that Lenovo alone shipped 72M PCs last year; if only half of those had Intel inside, that's 36 million Wintelenovo machines. Isn't that a big enough incentive for all those involved to work together and optimize every aspect of the platform down to the smallest details? Yet they seem to care substantially less than Apple does.

Are there any antitrust laws at work here? Like, Intel and Lenovo not allowed to create joint engineering teams and share information because it could potentially hurt AMD, HP and others?
Posted on Reply
#9
Am*
Good to finally see them make the obvious move, but this will not be a serious contender until they stop making their CPUs with such throwaway designs. Increase the support for your processors for longer than the pathetic 3 years before rendering them unsupported/obsolete and increase it to at least 7-10 years, matching Apple -- then we'll consider replacing x86 with ARM.
Posted on Reply
#10
owen10578
Unless this has the same magic hardware accelerated x86 to ARM instruction translator like Apple's M1 has this will not be able to compete.
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Nov 21st, 2024 12:06 EST change timezone

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