Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

[FlameTail]

Leaker details new unreleased Qualcomm Snapdragon X chipset before official reveal

A typically reliable leaker has shared early details about another unreleased Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset. Joining the ranks of the X1P-64-100 and the rumoured X1P-42-100, the X1P-39-100 is expected to line up as the least powerful option in the Snapdragon X range.

www.notebookcheck.net

So Purwa is going to be advertised under the Snapdragon X Plus brand?

This doesn't sound good. The Purwa parts (X1P-42-100 and X1P-39-100) have 8 CPU cores, which is different from the 10 CPU cores of the Hamoa based X1P-64-100. This good create confusion among customers, and generally muddy neat new naming scheme.

 

[adroc_thurston]

So Purwa is going to be advertised under the Snapdragon X Plus brand?

yea.

This doesn't sound good. The Purwa parts (X1P-42-100 and X1P-39-100) have 8 CPU cores, which is different from the 10 CPU cores of the Hamoa based X1P-64-100. This good create confusion among customers, and generally muddy neat new naming scheme.

it's fine, two cores do not make or break the difference and neither part has any boost.

 

[SpudLobby]

View attachment 100090
The Apple M4 consumes 30W each for the CPU and GPU.

If Apple could put such a chip into a fanless device (iPad), why couldn't Qualcomm put their Snapdragon X Plus into a fanless laptop?

Snapdragon X Plus;
CPU : 30W
GPU : 20W

Every Snapdragon X laptop unveiled so far has a fan.

They could but the lack of E Cores would hurt them. M4 perf under 10W would blow QC out.

Leaker details new unreleased Qualcomm Snapdragon X chipset before official reveal

A typically reliable leaker has shared early details about another unreleased Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset. Joining the ranks of the X1P-64-100 and the rumoured X1P-42-100, the X1P-39-100 is expected to line up as the least powerful option in the Snapdragon X range.

www.notebookcheck.net

So Purwa is going to be advertised under the Snapdragon X Plus brand?

Ofc. That’s the one with the cut video die. It’s an X Plus still. The X1P-42.

This doesn't sound good. The Purwa parts (X1P-42-100 and X1P-39-100) have 8 CPU cores, which is different from the 10 CPU cores of the Hamoa based X1P-64-100. This good create confusion among customers, and generally muddy neat new naming scheme.

 

[SpudLobby]

Who cares re 2 extra cores. Not a big deal at this scale under the same name. No boost anyway. It’s fine.

 

[FlameTail]

They could but the lack of E Cores would hurt them. M4 perf under 10W would blow QC out.

Indeed, I wonder what Qualcomm's strategy for E-cores is.

It's kinda crazy to think that- the lead architect of Oryon is in this forum, and following this thread (?). But of course, he isn't going to tell us anything!

 

[Gerard Williams]

Indeed, I wonder what Qualcomm's strategy for E-cores is.

It's kinda crazy to think that- the lead architect of Oryon is in this forum, and following this thread (?). But of course, he isn't going to tell us anything!

I follow a lot of threads. Fun to see what people write and say. A lot is 1000% speculation but fun for me to see how close to the real device everyone guesses. Led or contributed to development of many processors over my 26 yrs, not just Oryon CPUs. From

ARM CPUs: ARM1020, ARM1022, ARM926, ARM1026, ARM968, Correx-A8, Cortex-A15

Apple CPUs: Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister, Hurricane+E, Monsoon+E, Vortex+E, Lightning+E, Firestorm+E, and Avalanche (early days). Architected M1, M1pro, M1max, and M1ultra.

Nuvia CPUs: Phoenix

Qualcomm CPUs: Oryon family

So more than 20 CPUs, from R and A profiles, from simple in order to widely out of order. Its fun to read papers and follow industry and just see where things trend. One day will write a book and talk about the journey. But for now will keep read and building.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Why exactly does Qualcomm, or anyone else, NEED to match Apple?

Prestige, mindshare?
Golden standard?

If later, they need to make OEMs make fanless devices.

 

[gdansk]

Why exactly does Qualcomm, or anyone else, NEED to match Apple?

Prestige, mindshare?
Golden standard?

If later, they need to make OEMs make fanless devices.

Maybe they don't *need* to (and won't until they are on the same process) but they need to be closer than they were.

 

[SpudLobby]

I follow a lot of threads. Fun to see what people write and say. A lot is 1000% speculation but fun for me to see how close to the real device everyone guesses. Led or contributed to development of many processors over my 26 yrs, not just Oryon CPUs. From

ARM CPUs: ARM1020, ARM1022, ARM926, ARM1026, ARM968, Correx-A8, Cortex-A15

Apple CPUs: Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister, Hurricane+E, Monsoon+E, Vortex+E, Lightning+E, Firestorm+E, and Avalanche (early days). Architected M1, M1pro, M1max, and M1ultra.

Nuvia CPUs: Phoenix

Qualcomm CPUs: Oryon family

So more than 20 CPUs, from R and A profiles, from simple in order to widely out of order. Its fun to read papers and follow industry and just see where things trend. One day will write a book and talk about the journey. But for now will keep read and building.

Alright. I’ll take my guess on the QC E Cores, just for fun — mirrors my previous guesses roughly but you might not have seen, and I’ll offer more detail.

If nothing else: Cut & different physical design synthesis with different cell libraries and transistors, less domino logic (lower clocks). If only for laptops alone this would be tremendous for area and MT/mm^2, and I suspect that’s already been done in the third core cluster to some degree. Not to mention QC’s P cores are very likely more efficient than AMD & Intel’s P and E cores both.

So this at minimum is a given — in the at worst & most labor efficient, time saving case you’d do this with P cores and call it a day.

But as impressive as the power floor is with Oryon (2W total on N4P in a laptop SoC with a wider bus, more RAM), this is for phones and Oryon is a beefier core setup, so for architecture if QC decides to change anything anytime in the next 0-2 years — I am guessing the first ones will be closer to Apple’s E cores than they will Arm’s A7X cores. Specifically if the L1 is changed, it will be more than the common 32 + 32 KB L1 configs we see in Android phones’ A7x cores (you can do 64+64 but then it’s just X cores). Reducing data movement is important and I suspect a shared L2, so. Cut down ROB and the width in general on the frontend and backend after that. Could see like a anywhere from 5 to 8-wide decode/dispatch.

The “clean sheet” stuff is abused here ad nauseam, but I expect this to be somewhat obviously derivative of the P Core, which is fine if it works and QC can go from there.

Also: I’m well aware QC did a cut-down clocks/L2-only big.little diff. before with custom cores, they may do that again for round one but I think long term they’ll have their own e core, and I think Oryon might be big enough to justify trimming some hedges. For the 8 Gen 4, all depends on the ROI for their time and how much lead they had to pull that off (if).

 

[SpudLobby]

RE: fanless.

QC could absolutely do a fanless laptop part still, the platform total power minus static on ST is about 7.5W for performance that mirrors AMD at 12W and Intel at nearly 20W, and the power floor on ST (about a third to a fourth of the total perf) at just 2W total vs 5-6W for AMD and Intel, which makes a huge difference in power draw for just a cursor movement and such.

But it would get wacked relative to an M2/M3 or M4 when thermally constrained, even if “battery life” matched it for a mixed use case, and it’s just the wrong setup in terms of cores and area. Wasteful basically.

If you want the best fanless choice, your best bet is still Apple, for now.

 

[adroc_thurston]

If you want the best fanless choice, your best bet is still Apple, for now.

say it with me kiddo:
LUNAR
A
K
E

 

[coercitiv]

Why exactly does Qualcomm, or anyone else, NEED to match Apple?

They don't need to match Apple, they need to match the leader. It grabs the attention of the press, so it grabs consumer eye balls. A company like QC needs this perception to charge a premium for their products, a company like Microsoft needs this perception because they can't win at making the better OS.

 

[poke01]

I follow a lot of threads. Fun to see what people write and say. A lot is 1000% speculation but fun for me to see how close to the real device everyone guesses. Led or contributed to development of many processors over my 26 yrs, not just Oryon CPUs. From

ARM CPUs: ARM1020, ARM1022, ARM926, ARM1026, ARM968, Correx-A8, Cortex-A15

Apple CPUs: Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister, Hurricane+E, Monsoon+E, Vortex+E, Lightning+E, Firestorm+E, and Avalanche (early days). Architected M1, M1pro, M1max, and M1ultra.

Nuvia CPUs: Phoenix

Qualcomm CPUs: Oryon family

So more than 20 CPUs, from R and A profiles, from simple in order to widely out of order. Its fun to read papers and follow industry and just see where things trend. One day will write a book and talk about the journey. But for now will keep read and building.

Great resume of CPUs.

say it with me kiddo:
LUNAR
A
K
E

It’s not out yet and I willing to bet that 1t will still be better on M4.

 

[adroc_thurston]

It’s not out yet and I willing to bet that 1t will still be better on M4.

It runs windows and runs Real Software so that's a small price to pay.

 

[SpudLobby]

say it with me kiddo:

Dude you are probably younger than I am and I’d quash you like a bug (you’re a twink who’s survived artillery, congrats). 80% of your twitter is just porn.

LUNAR
A
K
E

Will be fine and I’ll probably buy it but you’d be on crack to think Intel E Cores will hold a candle to Apple’s. We already know the N3B GPU is just M1 tier on efficiency lol.

 

[SpudLobby]

It runs windows and runs Real Software so that's a small price to pay.

He’s right on this part. This is why I’ll probably buy it.

 

[adroc_thurston]

80% of your twitter is just porn.

Not even porn.
Great filter too.
Filtered.

and I’d quash you like a bug

lmao.

but you’d be on crack to think Intel E Cores will hold a candle to Apple’s

Skymont is very aight.

We already know the N3B GPU is just M1 tier on efficiency lol.

Intel GPU IP is mediocre at best, but we're not talking GPUs.

 

[SpudLobby]

Not even porn.
Great filter too.
Filtered.

anime lolicon stuff whatever. Suit yourself.

lmao.

Lmao indeed.

Skymont is very aight.

It’ll be fine but let’s not act like the M3 won’t still be a superior product on hardware alone. Intel disappoints. LNL is cool because it’s Intel’s M1 ripoff for Windows without Arm translation penalties and using an entire node and way too much area (and 1T power vs M3/4) to get there. That’s actually fine. But lol.

Intel GPU IP is mediocre at best, but we're not talking GPUs.

It sets a certain expectation. It’s pretty easy to scale. It’s also pretty relevant for games. Will be fine but lol.

 

[adroc_thurston]

anime lolicon stuff whatever. Suit yourself.

Not even that.

Lmao indeed.

You're funny, I'll give you that.

It’ll be fine but let’s not act like the M3 won’t still be a superior product on hardware alone.

Ehh.

LNL is cool because it’s Intel’s M1 ripoff for Windows without Arm translation penalties and using an entire node and way too much area (and 1T power vs M3/4) to get there. That’s actually fine. But lol.

It's just good IP overall packaged together.

It sets a certain expectation. It’s pretty easy to scale. It’s also pretty relevant for games

It's just mid.
Gen12 was never good and its iterations are really not all that better outside of moar fmax.

 

[SpudLobby]

Lunar Lake unadjusted for node + area will be a B+ to A- product for the windows world and Intel’s first acceptable mobile part in 3-4 years (and honestly Ryzen blew out TGL but availability wasn’t there). But from hardware, cost alone - lol. Hopefully Intel improves.

 

[poke01]

It runs windows and runs Real Software so that's a small price to pay.

true, is the price low?
As in OEMs will price them at $999 and >$1299 with OLED

M4 won’t arrive in a MacBook Air till 2025 march, while the M3 Air is still good it’s got a LCD screen.


Side rant; WHY IS M4 IN AN IPAD? ( I actually like macOS on laptops)

 

[adroc_thurston]

But from hardware, cost alone - lol.

But it looks reasonable?
It's not a cheap part but looks fine.

true, is the price low?

No.

As in OEMs will price them at $999 and >$1299 with OLED

Sort of.

 

[poke01]

but you’d be on crack to think Intel E Cores

They are not E cores but legit Mid cores now.

 

[SpudLobby]

Not even that.

Oh but it is.

You're funny, I'll give you that.

That’s good.

Ehh.

It's just good IP overall packaged together.

It's just mid.
Gen12 was never good and its iterations are really not all that better outside of moar fmax.

It’s a mid part from an objective POV but good for the context it’s in. Which is fine for now. But they’re going to have to do better going forward. Much better. Blowing 140mm^2 N3B on this thing is honestly mediocre for what it is. And Arm translation penalties probably won’t hold as much weight in 2025, 2026 onwards either.

But for now it’s at that good enough bar to where I’ll probably pick one up if they can get volume in by Q4.

 

[SpudLobby]

But it looks reasonable?
It's not a cheap part but looks fine.

Oh look: don’t get me wrong; for the context the market is in with Arm translation, Qualcomm not having a 4+4 part with as much ST or on N3, Apple being Apple and the usual BS — yeah, it’s fine and will sell well. Lot of design wins (unsure on actual volume for Christmas even tho they say Q3).

No.

Sort of.