Yes. QCOM is ignoring our posts despite their staff being registered here as members.
This is not good. Purwa is only acceptable in $550 laptops. Max.
Yes. QCOM is ignoring our posts despite their staff being registered here as members.$1100. That's bullshit from ASUS.
I think it's fine given the price bracket is <$700. But I definitely don't understand why keep a 40 TOPs NPU with single-channel memory.
QCOM will really need to push their OEMs to offer cheap designs with this. Otherwise it's another huge failure like X Elite.
They save a lot in platform costs but it's definitely a puzzling decision.
| Snapdragon 8G3 | 45 TOPS |
| Dimensity 9300 | 48 TOPS |
| Snapdragon 8G4 | 70+ TOPS* |
| Dimensity 9400 | 67 TOPS* |
They do. But these chips (Alder Lake N and Mendocino) are slower and cheaper.In fact, I have often wondered why Intel/AMD don't use single-channel memory for their low end parts.
As I said, I think it's fine. Even if puzzling given the 40 TOPs NPU still being presented. But, as you said, the price is an issue. This SoC needs to appear on <$700 laptops and need wide availability on multiple markets. Let's see what QCOM will announce at IFA.I think you guys are overreacting about the "single-channel memory" (aka 64 bit memory bus).
Considering that Purwa has less than half of the GPU performance of Hamoa, and about half the CPU multicore performance of Hamoa, it makes sense to cut the memory bus also in half. (Purwa still keeps the same 6 MB capacity SLC as Hamoa).
In fact, I have often wondered why Intel/AMD don't use single-channel memory for their low end parts.
Eg:
Meteor Lake-H = 6P+8E+2LPE + 8 Xe1
Meteor Lake-U = 2P+8E+2LPE + 4 Xe1
MTL-U has about half the CPU and half the GPU of MTL-H. Why not give MTL-U half the memory bus?
As for the NPU, I don't think the 64 bit memory bus is going to be problem. I doubt these puny <50 TOPS NPUs can saturate a 64 bit LPDDR5X-8533 memory bus.
*rumoured
Snapdragon 8G3 45 TOPS Dimensity 9300 48 TOPS Snapdragon 8G4 70+ TOPS* Dimensity 9400 67 TOPS*
And all these mobile SoCs have 64 bit memory buses.
My only issue with this part is the pricing. It should belong in <$800 laptops.
If you think the engineers who designed the core have anything to say in these matters... Didn't a marketing guy "correct" some words from GW3 during HotChips?Yes. QCOM is ignoring our posts despite their staff being registered here as members.
This is not good. Purwa is only acceptable in $550 laptops. Max.
An engineer can and should put their foot down.If you think the engineers who designed the core have anything to say in these matters
A true engineer never compromises!An engineer can also be CONVINCED to stand down by various incentives
If you think the engineers who designed the core have anything to say in these matters... Didn't a marketing guy "correct" some words from GW3 during HotChips?
This is a bit simplistic. There are many, many people involved in bringing any product to life. Engineers, programmers, product managers, financial, sales, and... marketing. All of which have their inputs, but still each to his own. I don't think a "marketing" guy is deciding on the number of memory channels.The marketing guys are the ones who set prices, decide on the number of SKUs they want, and if they believe the best way to segment the markets means disabling one of the memory channels on some offerings that'll be what gets done. If GW III and co don't like it, there isn't anything they can do about it except quit. That's the reality of all big companies. If they didn't want to have to deal with that sort of thing they would have turned down Qualcomm's offer and Nuvia would still be an independent company.
Because 2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, 2 LPE-cores, 4Xe cores, is a ton of cpu+gpu cores to feed with 64-bit wide LPDDR5 interface. It's similar to 128-bit LPDDR4-3200, which was standard in... 2019-2020. In fact, Intel makes 64-bit wide CPUs - N100, N300, and their derivatives. They just have less of everything: 4-8 E-cores and a small iGPU. Same with AMD. 7320U and 7520U are 64-bit only, they have 4 Zen2 cores and small iGPU. Purwa will have similar bandwidth to those chips, and most likely perform similar in a lot of multicore tests.In fact, I have often wondered why Intel/AMD don't use single-channel memory for their low end parts.
Eg:
Meteor Lake-H = 6P+8E+2LPE + 8 Xe1
Meteor Lake-U = 2P+8E+2LPE + 4 Xe1
Today LPDDR5X-8500 is the standard, not LPDDR5-6400.Because 2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, 2 LPE-cores, 4Xe cores, is a ton of cpu+gpu cores to feed with 64-bit wide LPDDR5 interface. It's similar to 128-bit LPDDR4-3200,
According to Wccftech's leak, X1P-42-100 scores ~650 points in CB2024 multicore, and ~11500 points in Geekbench 6 multicore. That's similar performance to Apple M3 or a Ryzen 8640U.Purwa will have similar bandwidth to those chips, and most likely perform similar in a lot of multicore tests.
This is a bit simplistic. There are many, many people involved in bringing any product to life. Engineers, programmers, product managers, financial, sales, and... marketing. All of which have their inputs, but still each to his own. I don't think a "marketing" guy is deciding on the number of memory channels.
X1P-42 is not a product in a vacuum. It is part of a roadmap. I'm sure early on during development, GW sat down with members of the aforementioned teams to discuss this product. Certainly, they had a price range in mind, along with many wishes and KPIs, all to cater to a target audience. And, from an engineering point of view, he should have enjoyed plenty of space to decide how to achieve it. Maybe he was asked too much with too little? Maybe. But for all we know, he and his team know how to balance stuff.
Each company has its own product strategy and segmentation. Apple has, at most, eight SKUs per generation. Intel had 30+ for mobile Raptor Lake. AMD always had a strong focus on bringing solid iGPUs. Maybe you felt compelled by that. I wasn't. Different targets, different compromises. See?
In relation to the above post, look at how AMD groups their last three generations of mobile SoC. Their 8 core SoCs got the full iGPU config and their 6 core SoCs got the cut down iGPU. While AMD was perfectly capable of recovering SoCs that only had a below spec core as a 6 core Soc with a full iGPU, they knew that most people would just buy that instead of the higher priced 8 core SoCs with full iGPU. A notable exception was a Lenovo specific SKU that had a less disabled iGPU than the rest.
That's a funny statement. How important are we really?Yes. QCOM is ignoring our posts despite their staff being registered here as members.
I pretty much agree, with some exceptions.I wasn't implying that marketing alone has sole authority. But they do projections and determine what they think will maximize revenue with the proper mix of SKUs. They aren't saying "hey disable one memory channel" but they are saying "we want SKUs in this price band, but to avoid cannibalizing our higher price bands the performance of these cheaper SKUs needs to be limited in some way". So they aren't making the call "disable one memory channel" vs "cut clock rate by 700 MHz" vs "disable half the cache" but they are making the "we need to make this SKU worse enough that we can charge $100 less for it and customers won't choose this instead of the higher priced option because the performance is too similar".
Everyone does this. Look at the range of clock speeds (at similar TDPs) on Intel and AMD CPUs using the same cores. They aren't binning down that low in reality, that's a marketing driven decision. Look at Apple with the "missing GPU and CPU core" in their cheaper SKUs. Sure maybe they have a couple percent of chips that fail in one or the other core so that helps them recover 1-2% yield, but few people would really object to losing one core out of a dozen so almost everyone would take that choice to save a bit of money if that was the only cost. But it isn't - they generally pair it with a smaller RAM/NAND config which matters to a lot more people. That's not an engineering decision, that's purely driven by the needs of marketing. Even if the marketers aren't the ones deciding on the memory configs, just saying "we need the cheaper option to not be so close to the step up option it cannibalizes sales of that step up option".
This is not how companies like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm tend to operate. Maybe we are too used to Apple's obscene price anchoring, but when you have to sell chips to cheap OEMs, price becomes a matter of survival. Obviously they would love for you to choose the higher-priced one, but reality is not always that good."we need to make this SKU worse enough that we can charge $100 less for it and customers won't choose this instead of the higher priced option because the performance is too similar".
Hey, we represent everyone coz everyone isn't here. They forfeited their representation to us!That's a funny statement. How important are we really?
We are deep enthusiasts of CPUs and silicon. A niche within a niche. We don't represent the general consumer.
What are the expectations? Holding a conference for Purwa?Goes live in 90 minutes.
Probably. And 90% of the presentation wil be about AI. I'll watch a bit to see how much QC hypes up this crippled little chip.What are the expectations? Holding a conference for Purwa?