Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

[Philste]

I mean, looking at Notebookcheck Review, it's definitely a usable Chip, which already is an accomplishment after what we had so far for Windows on ARM. But it's nothing special at all, it had to be released 2 Years ago to be something where people say "wow". And the worst part is that next month it will receive a beating from Strix in all performance metrics and 2 months after that it will receive a beating from Lunar Lake in battery life.

What is kinda worse (not for me personally, but for all the current AI buzzing) is that the main feature is deactivated so far. And when it finally arrives, both AMD and Intel have the faster NPU.

At this point Qualcomm should be happy to gain 5% market share in 3 Years, these 50% claims are just laughable.

 

[ikjadoon]

Notebookcheck review of Vivobook S 15 is up (in german).

This is not a very good chip, as it stands now, in this laptop.
Browsing is good, responsive and OK battery life, but this is not nearly enough..

This bit is unfortunate: a 20W power limit will not survive passively.

Please note: The TDP information comes from the manufacturer and also includes the power consumption of the memory and the microcontroller. Therefore, these values are not comparable with the TDP information of AMD/Intel chips. There is also currently no way to read the TDP values for the Snapdragon CPUs. The information in the table comes from Asus, but we suspect that these are only the long-term values and that the short-term consumption is higher.

Due to the high TDP values, the Snapdragon X Elite chips cannot be cooled passively, which is of course a major disadvantage compared to the Apple MacBook Air 15, for example. The Vivobook is by no means almost always silent, but is more in line with normal AMD or Intel laptops.

ASUS claims the CPU + RAM power limit is roughly 20W at its lowest setting. Unfortunately, Qualcomm has obfuscated the already-bewildering world of TDP: the spec sheet still shows no TDP range.

Disappointing for us fanless fans on round 1. Perhaps by X Plus or "V2", there will have been more effort on some lower-power parts with strict TDP limits. Even the current X Elite tablets have active cooling.

Frankly, I'm not crazy impressed with the efficiency of this batch of X Elite designs yet re: thermals & battery life versus what Qualcomm had claimed.

//

However, idle temps look good, though not chart-topping as I would've hoped. Notebookcheck doesn't really have a "light load" thermal test: just idle, gaming, and stress, but that would've been interesting.

The CB R23 (emulated) 1T power consumption + internal OELD off + external monitor activated is ~14.4W average (some duration at 20W+).

//

Also no details on the additional PCIe lanes that Notebookcheck claimed months ago.

Additionally, devices powered by the X Elite will offer 8 PCIe Gen4 lanes apart from those used for the SSD and Wi-Fi, support for MAPI cameras, and potentially multi-day battery life.

None of the devices I've seen even have a 2nd M.2 slot.

//

Battery efficiency, with a 60 Hz OLED, is roughly 11min per WHr, which is nothing spectacular. The OLED seems to be decently efficient (peak idle power, I assume at 100% brightness, is ~7.5W).

Notebookcheck does not explicitly confirm if they used ASUS custom "power efficiency" power plan when unplugged.

 

[FlameTail]

Battery efficiency, with a 60 Hz OLED, is roughly 11min per WHr. Frankly, I'm not crazy impressed with the efficiency of this batch of X Elite designs re: thermals & battery life versus what Qualcomm had claimed.

Batch? The only in-depth laptop review (if it can be called that) so far is that of the Asus Vivobook.

 

[FlameTail]

Unfortunately it seems another hype train is coming off the rails. Not bad at all, just too much hype.

Yay.

Maybe Microsoft’s own solution will be better but I’m not counting on it.

The Surface devices you mean?

 

[ikjadoon]

Batch? The only in-depth laptop review (if it can be called that) so far is that of the Asus Vivobook.

Ah, I was thinking more re: fanless options, there are none. All X Elite options today are actively cooled. But it makes more sense to not put it in that paragraph. Edited now.

I had held out some hope that ASUS (or hopefully others, as you mention) will allow a much lower TDP mode / profile and have its performance tested.

 

[Hitman928]

The Surface devices you mean?

Yes.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Oh man I wish Exist50 were still active here

He's not surviving Turin launch so w/ever.
(Or Strix, for that matter).

Ah, I was thinking more re: fanless options, there are none

It's a bigger and meaner part than the usual 4+4 fanless compliment.

 

[FlameTail]

Will Purwa be featured in fanless laptops?

 

[ikjadoon]

Another review with more thorough battery life testing, as translated from Italian:

ASUS Vivobook S15: è tempo di Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite

Il primo notebook Windows con SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite giunge in redazione per i nostri consueti test: le novità architetturali di questa piattaforma sono numerose ma a interessare è soprattutto la ventata di novità che questa porta all'interno dell'ecosistema dei sistemi notebook...

www.hwupgrade.it

Unfortunately, can't find their methodology anywhere, though.




It's good and nearly chart-leading, but it's not a clear-and-true victor yet.

//

On the topic of diversity of reviews: ... this review timing is wild. I can't remember the last major CPU launch where consumers had production devices before most reviews of various designs were published.

We have one laptop with a few nice reviews and that's it on the launch date? The recall of Recall didn't help, but judging by the mishaps on early units (e.g., the very low GB6 scores), some designs were barely finished by the launch date.

 

[SpudLobby]

On the topic of diversity of reviews: ... this review timing is wild. I can't remember the last major CPU launch where consumers had production devices before most reviews of various designs were published.

Microsoft is truly incredible

building a great product in principle with Recall and not thinking through it, storing data in a casual unencrypted sqllite directory, turning it on by default, then bungling a launch by hinging the launch on it

 

[DrMrLordX]

We calling it "WARM" now?

People have been calling Windows on Arm "WARM" since the first 8cx laptops were sold.

 

[podspi]

Microsoft is truly incredible

building a great product in principle with Recall and not thinking through it, storing data in a casual unencrypted sqllite directory, turning it on by default, then bungling a launch by hinging the launch on it

Yes, if it works, the feature will be life-changing for some. Annnd they had it storing everything in plaintext 🤦

Edit: Prism sounds like a huge leap forward. This was my biggest worry, so I am excited to see if some previously unusable software now works on WARM (Anaconda distro in particular).

 

[adroc_thurston]

I can't remember the last major CPU launch where consumers had production devices before most reviews of various designs were published.

Cezanne.

Edit: Prism sounds like a huge leap forward

Yeah, but it should've happened eons ago.

 

[The Hardcard]

Dave2D’s review has supposedly been up for 11 hours.

Good performance, including emulated performance.

But the battery life performance is far from game changing. People won’t abandon x86 en masse for that.

 

[SpudLobby]

Copilot+ PC launch day live blog: Testing the new Snapdragon Laptops

The first group of Copilot+ PCs, powered by Snapdragon X CPUs, are out today and we're benchmarking them.

www.tomshardware.com

Tom's Hardware live blog of testing

Okay this is funny lol

 

[Joe NYC]

As most of the people living in the Northern Hemisphere are aware, it is cherry-picking season here.

So, expect some cherry-picked top bin Snapdragon X parts in the officially sanctioned reviews, while the vast majority of laptops on sale are going to come from low bins.

 

[FlameTail]

Copilot+ PC launch day live blog: Testing the new Snapdragon Laptops

The first group of Copilot+ PCs, powered by Snapdragon X CPUs, are out today and we're benchmarking them.

www.tomshardware.com

Tom's Hardware live blog of testing

Is there a live chat?

 

[adroc_thurston]

So, expect some cherry-picked top bin Snapdragon X parts in the officially sanctioned reviews, while the vast majority of laptops on sale are going to come from low bins.

No, it's the same 4G bin everywhere.

 

[FlameTail]

People have been calling Windows on Arm "WARM" since the first 8cx laptops were sold.

WARM

Please no.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Please no.

it's WARM by microSOFT.
hope that helps.

 

[FlameTail]

Ryan Shrout battery chart:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1803088585651855435

 

[KompuKare]

One the NBC review showed 2 fans, power efficiency was never going to be great.
The various benchmarks at different power settings arer interesting but the results aren't really.

Pity NBC didn't have other Asus OLED laptops in the default charts (in theory you can search for other reviews to compare but at least on the phone I wasn't able to find the other Asus OLED ones). OLED without turning down brightness and using dark mode tends to kill battery life.

 

[adroc_thurston]

OLED without turning down brightness and using dark mode tends to kill battery life.

OLED BL testing just needs to specify APL %.

 

[Joe NYC]

No, it's the same 4G bin everywhere.

Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-78-100) does not seem to have the boost clock

 

[GTracing]

Ryan Shrout battery chart:

Sooo, is this a game of "spot the unfair test condition"? Or are we just going to pretend that Ryan Shrout is reliable?