ASUS Leaks its own Snapdragon X Elite Notebook

[TheLostSwede]

Courtesy of ASUS Vietnam (via @rquandt on X/Twitter), we now have an idea of what ASUS' first Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite notebook will look like, but also what the main specifications are. It will share the Vivobook S 15 OLED branding with other notebooks from ASUS, although the leaked model carries the model number S5507QA-MA089WS. At its core is a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 SoC which is the base model from Qualcomm. The SoC consists of 12 Oryon cores, of which eight are performance cores and four are energy efficient cores. A peak, multi-threaded clock speed of 3.4 GHz and 42 MB of cache, as well as a 75 TOPs AI engine rounds off the SoC specs. The SoC is also home to a Qualcomm Adreno GPU, but so far Qualcomm hasn't released any useful specs about the GPU in the Snapdragon X Elite series of chips.

ASUS has paired the SoC with 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory of an unknown clock speed, although Qualcomm officially supports speed of up to 8,448 MT/s in a to PC users unusual configuration of eight channels at 16-bit wide, for a bandwidth of up to 135 GB/s. For comparison, Intel's latest Core Ultra processors max out at LPDDR5X 7,467 MT/s and up to 120 GB/s memory bandwidth. Other features include a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, a glossy 15.6-inch 2,880 x 1,620 resolution, 120 Hz OLED display with 600 nits peak brightness and a 70 WHr battery. It's unclear what connectivity options will be on offer, but judging by the screenshot below, we can at least expect an HDMI out as well as a pair of USB Type-C ports, a micro SD card slot and a headphone jack. As far as pricing goes, Roland Quandt is suggesting a €1,500 base price on X/Twitter, but we'll have to wait for the official launch to find out what these Arm based laptops will retail for. ASUS Vietnam has already removed the page from its website.



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[john_]

I wonder if everyone believes that these Snapdragon chips can do the job, or just rushing to build 1-2 models to avoid falling behind in case the Windows on ARM is successful this time.

 

[R0H1T]

It's probably kinda like Intel Arc for QC, they just need to get them out to market to avoid total(?) write off on these parts. Good thing for us is that it could lower the prices of much better Intel/AMD laptops in the next 6-12 months even if only temporarily. Apple wouldn't give 2 effs about anyone, including their loyal fans!

 

[ArcanisGK507]

OS??????

 

[wNotyarD]

OS??????

Windows 11 on ARM

 

[P4-630]

I mean I ran Windows on MIPS....

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I wonder if everyone believes that these Snapdragon chips can do the job, or just rushing to build 1-2 models to avoid falling behind in case the Windows on ARM is successful this time.

Put me in the "won't make a dent" category. I'd like to be proven wrong, but MS has been trying and failing to do WOA for a decade now. I think that long track record of disappointment can't just be overcome with a decent SOC. Apple is on year 4 and they did it right from the start. Even if Apple has advantages that QC and MS don't, a strong start makes a huge difference, IMO. It also doesn't help that very little excitement comes from anything Windows-related anymore.

 

[bonehead123]

If that price is even close to actual, these better be at least as good in every way as a MacBook, if not better, or they are DOA, IMHO, of course....

 

[Dr. Dro]

If that price is even close to actual, these better be at least as good in every way as a MacBook, if not better, or they are DOA, IMHO, of course....

They won't be. Qcom's GPU drivers are a meme too.

 

[Nanochip]

Will these snapdragon ARM laptops give the existing x86 competition a run for its money?
If so, will other ARM vendors besides Qualcomm enter the arena offering excellent performance per watt?

If so, will x86 survive ?

 

[wNotyarD]

Will these snapdragon ARM laptops give the existing x86 competition a run for its money?

If rumors are to be believed, not in the slightest where performance is the matter. There's been some hot talk about Qualcomm lying heavily about its numbers.
Performance per watt and battery endurance may come true, but even then if Microsoft doesn't get its game together why would anyone care about WoA?

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

I mean I ran Windows on MIPS....

And on Alpha and PowerPC

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

If rumors are to be believed, not in the slightest where performance is the matter. There's been some hot talk about Qualcomm lying heavily about its numbers.
Performance per watt and battery endurance may come true, but even then if Microsoft doesn't get its game together why would anyone care about WoA?

And to this point, MS doesn't sell licenses for WoA. As long as that happens, WoA is going to be limited to this type of hardware. It's not like we'd really be able to build our own ARM desktop anyway. Even with PCIe slots, you can't just drop in the GPU of your choice and hope it will work. All that hardware is built to work on x86. The best WoA can hope for are devices just like this, where what you see is what you get, and nothing is upgradable. At that point, you'd have to really love Windows to get such a machine, as you're throwing out some of the best things Windows has to offer--hardware diversity and legacy support. Once you're tossing that stuff out, it's time to give alternative OSes a hard look.

 

[Eternit]

I doubt there will be any significant sales of expensive 15" laptops with ARM and Windows. They'd better do cheap 7-10" tablets.

Put me in the "won't make a dent" category. I'd like to be proven wrong, but MS has been trying and failing to do WOA for a decade now. I think that long track record of disappointment can't just be overcome with a decent SOC. Apple is on year 4 and they did it right from the start. Even if Apple has advantages that QC and MS don't, a strong start makes a huge difference, IMO. It also doesn't help that very little excitement comes from anything Windows-related anymore.

Apple has a lot of loyal fans willing to pay a lot for their new stuff. Microsoft doesn't. The only way to make something new with Windows popular is to sell it cheap in the begining and only after it get popular, release some expensive versions. They did a big mistake with starting Windows Phone with expensive models.

 

[tvshacker]

"INTEL Qualcomm Adreno GPU"
Isn't Adreno supposed to be an anagram of RADEON???

 

[azrael]

"Intel Qualcom Adreno GPU"
Isn't Adreno supposed to be an anagram of RADEON???

Guess why...

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I doubt there will be any significant sales of expensive 15" laptops with ARM and Windows. They'd better do cheap 7-10" tablets.


Apple has a lot of loyal fans willing to pay a lot for their new stuff. Microsoft doesn't. The only way to make something new with Windows popular is to sell it cheap in the begining and only after it get popular, release some expensive versions. They did a big mistake with starting Windows Phone with expensive models.

The cheap Windows devices create an artificial floor, IMO. They are often of such poor quality and performance that it harms the Windows experience. Once you start buying Windows machines that match the performance and quality of the Mac, the price difference isn't that significant. Even Paul Thurrott has said as much when he reviewed the M3 MBA, and he's never been a big Apple advocate. Windows Phone was doomed by MS's repeated changes for developers. They kept making them redo their apps, and that's when apps were a big deal. The developers all gave up, which completely doomed the platform.

"INTEL Qualcomm Adreno GPU"
Isn't Adreno supposed to be an anagram of RADEON???

From what I gather, that's actually just a coincidence. Can't remember where I heard that though.

 

[Dr. Dro]

"INTEL Qualcomm Adreno GPU"
Isn't Adreno supposed to be an anagram of RADEON???

Official story is that it's got nothing to do with Radeon, but it doesn't really matter, none of the current GPU IP has anything to do with the earliest roots of Adreno (ATI Imageon). It's like thinking a RX 7900 XTX has anything to do with the Radeon DDR lol

 

[mb194dc]

Can they leak their own product ?

Interested to see what the Qualcomm SOC can do...

 

[Denver]

They won't be. Qcom's GPU drivers are a meme too.

Among smartphones, Adreno has the best drivers.
However,
Although,
Furthermore,
By bringing the battle to the field of conventional PCs, Qualcomm's life will become much more complex, it will take a lot of brute force $$$ to go head to head with the two established players.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Can they leak their own product ?

Well, various branches of companies appear to be doing things like that, as it's an unannounced, unreleased product, yet Asus' Vietnam office put it up in their local online shop...

 

[unwind-protect]

They won't be. Qcom's GPU drivers are a meme too.

Not just that.

There is a huge amount of init and driver software that QC has to produce. And I have zero confidence that they do a decent job.

 

[Minus Infinity]

A day after we had a headline showing us the Oryon chipset was less than half the price of cRaptor Lake and the Dell XPS 13 with Qualcomm was significantly cheaper than the Mediocre Lake equipped version, along comes Asucks with their usual BS user tax and prices it much higher. They are a total scumbag company in every possible way.

 

[Dr. Dro]

A day after we had a headline showing us the Oryon chipset was less than half the price of cRaptor Lake and the Dell XPS 13 with Qualcomm was significantly cheaper than the Mediocre Lake equipped version, along comes Asucks with their usual BS user tax and prices it much higher. They are a total scumbag company in every possible way.

It's just a shame that alternatives are is the Cryzen with the Badeon from Always More Disappointments, or nGreedia's GimpForce. computers and life suck and I am emo now

Not just that.

There is a huge amount of init and driver software that QC has to produce. And I have zero confidence that they do a decent job.

I'd be willing to concede a little what WoA might as well have a fairly different driver architecture, but I wouldn't be the one to know. As long as software is generally made compatible, battery life is great, and the computers are very affordable I'd be willing to give them a chance, even if the performance turns out to be crap.

 

[micropage7]

actually it's good coz we have alternative, just there's long way to go until it ready to challenge AMD and Intel