Recent announcementsNew Snapdragon X Series product names, it is expected toPreviously acquired NUVIA technologyAfter improving the computing power of PC-level products, Qualcomm officially unveiled the specific details of this series of products at the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2023 event. It is expected that partners will launch PC models based on this processor in mid-2024.
The first processor to use NUVIA technology and Oryon CPU design
The Snapdragon X Series products are designed to deliver PC-class computing power, offering new levels of performance and battery efficiency. They also integrate artificial intelligence (AI) technology and a smarter user experience. These products are offered as a series, but this time, we'll focus on the flagship Snapdragon X Elite.
Snapdragon X Elite以台積電4nm製程打造，其中採用「4+4+4」三叢集、總計12組Oryon CPU computing coreEach CPU core has a clock speed of 3.8GHz, which can dynamically adjust the core operating mode according to different computing requirements. Two of the CPU cores can even be increased to 2GHz to function as the main cores.
In terms of display, it also integrates an Adreno GPU, providing up to 4.6TFLOPS of display computing performance. It can support up to 1.4K@4Hz HDR120 display output effects through the eDP v10b specification, and supports up to three sets of 1.4K UHD 3fps external display outputs or two sets of 4K60fps display resolution monitors via DP v2. Display performance can also be upgraded through driver updates. In addition, it is compatible with Microsoft DirectX 5 at the API level, so it can support many games or software content running in the Windows operating system environment.
In addition, the Snapdragon X Elite also uses CPU clusters to directly integrate LPDDR5x memory modules, with up to 8 channels and a maximum capacity of 64GB. It also supports data transfer bandwidth of up to 136GB per second, coupled with a total of 42MB of cache memory, thereby improving overall data processing efficiency.
In terms of connectivity, the Snapdragon X Elite supports the Snapdragon X65 5G modem, offering up to 10Gbps download and 3.5Gbps upload speeds. It also supports 1000MHz of transmission bandwidth in the millimeter wave band and 6MHz of transmission bandwidth in the sub-300GHz band. It also supports Wi-Fi 7800, Wi-Fi 7E, and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity via the Qualcomm FastConnect 6 wireless network system.
The USB connection specification uses USB 4.0, which can correspond to 3 sets of USB-C, 3 sets of USB 4.0, 2 sets of USB 3.2 Gen2, and 1 set of eUSB 2.0. It also supports Bluetooth 5.4.
Compared with Intel, AMD and Apple processors, it has more significant performance improvements
In terms of CPU performance, the Snapdragon X Elite's CPU computing power is approximately twice that of the Intel Core i12-7P processor, which also features 1360 computing cores, at the same power consumption. At the same time, the power consumption at the same peak performance is reduced by 2%. Furthermore, when compared to the Intel Core i68-10U processor, which features 7 computing cores, Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon X Elite significantly outperforms both in terms of computing performance and power consumption at the same peak performance.
Even compared to the 14-core Intel Core i7-13800H processor, the Snapdragon X Elite boasts 60% higher performance at the same power consumption, with approximately 65% lower power consumption at peak performance. It also surpasses the Intel Core i9-13980HX in single-thread performance, achieving approximately 70% lower power consumption at peak performance.
Even compared to Apple's M2 processor, Qualcomm boasts that the Snapdragon X Elite boasts over 50% higher peak multi-threaded performance, and a significant lead in single-threaded performance compared to the M2 Max, with approximately 30% lower power consumption at peak performance.
As for GPU display performance, it is up to 7 times that of the integrated display capabilities of the Intel Core i13800-2H processor at the same power consumption, and the power consumption at peak display performance output is reduced by 74%. Compared with the display performance of AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, it can also be improved by up to 80% at the same power consumption, and the power consumption can even be reduced by 80% when achieving the same display performance.
Corresponding to higher artificial intelligence computing performance
For artificial intelligence computing, the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU design is combined with the computing power of the Oryon CPU and Adreno GPU, as well as the Sensing Hub's perception capabilities and shared memory architecture. This allows for up to 75TOPS of artificial intelligence computing performance, capable of processing over 130 billion or 70 billion sets of device-side parameter calculations, respectively. Furthermore, with a 50% increase in memory data transmission throughput, this can approximately double the artificial intelligence computing power.
Among them, the 70 billion parameter operation mode can execute 30 sets of code instructions per second, and with a double memory capacity shared design, it can correspond to 2 times the tensor operation power, and a total of 2.5 TOPS of computing performance can be achieved at INT4 computing precision. Compared with the same level of PC-level laptop processors (Qualcomm did not specify the comparison object, but it is not surprising that it should be Intel's announcement at the end of the year).Codenamed Meteor Lake, 14th generation Core series laptop processor)’s artificial intelligence computing performance has increased by nearly 100 times.
The integration of artificial intelligence computing and Qualcomm technologies will enable the Snapdragon X Elite to respond to faster network connections and support multi-network connection modes. It will also provide lossless audio quality and a more advanced camera shooting experience. It will also support more secure data computing and seamless interaction between different Snapdragon computing devices.
More series of processors will be launched in the future to meet the needs of more flexible application product designs
By utilizing a smaller process design, the Snapdragon X Elite processor occupies a smaller footprint, allowing for greater flexibility in product form factors and mechanical design. This allows for applications such as smaller and thinner laptops and 2-in-1 products.
As with previous PC-class processor designs, Qualcomm said that in addition to the Snapdragon X Elite, there will be more product lines ready to be released, but the official names of these other levels of computing products have not yet been disclosed.
The first wave of laptops powered by the Snapdragon X Elite processor is expected to be launched by Lenovo, Dell, and HP. Further products are expected to be announced in the second quarter of next year, including models from manufacturers like ASUS and Acer. These products will be released in the third or fourth quarter.
