Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

[DZero]

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Rumor is that this could be for next year (Hawi).

Oh no, it gives me Crashtor Lake flashbacks... best of AMD is boosting to 5.7 Ghz at 170W. How they can boost to 6.1 Ghz?

 

[mvprod123]

When those are their best IPC increases since 2020, yes it's time to talk stagnation.

Also, Qualcomm doesn't need to match IPC exactly. Their cores are small, built for clocks and they're already very efficient (just a smidge less than Apple's last year, probably the same thing this year). Closing the IPC gap some is good (and they empirically seem to be doing that) but for example ARM's stock big cores have better IPC and they're less efficient and less performant. IPC isn't the be all and end all.

The cores are already extremely wide. And it's very strange to expect +20-25% IPC, as some people here dream of.

 

[gdansk]

Oh no, it gives me Crashtor Lake flashbacks... best of AMD is boosting to 5.7 Ghz at 170W. How they can boost to 6.1 Ghz?

Raptor Lake was on 10nm+++, this will be made on some TSMC 2nm process. The voltage needed to reach this frequency will be much lower. 5 GHz (briefly) phone processors are coming. Don't be mad, it's just the way things work out.

 

[Magio]

The cores are already extremely wide. And it's very strange to expect +20-25% IPC, as some people here dream of.

I don't dream of 20+% YoY, I'm just pointing out that a sub 5% average over 5 years is stagnation and that Oryon's 10+% bump empirically means QC is closing the gap. A couple more years like those and they would overtake Apple's IPC. I'm not saying that will happen, nor am I saying it needs to happen for that matter, just that the Nuvia team is doing great work improving a core that was already top notch last year.

 

[DZero]

Raptor Lake was on 10nm+++, this will be made on some TSMC 2nm process. The voltage needed to reach this frequency will be much lower. 5 GHz (briefly) phone processors are coming. Don't be mad, it's just the way things work out.

Well... AMD is using 4nm and the best version of it, so, in 2nm don't expect miracles.

 

[gdansk]

Well... AMD is using 4nm and the best version of it, so, in 2nm don't expect miracles.

So? Zen isn't really relevant to what can be done for a phone chip.
QC need a few hundred megahertz more but because it crosses some imaginary threshold it becomes a bad idea. A balanced design will push frequency as process allows.

 

[Doug S]

Apple is done... ST wise got caugh up and MT wise got defeated. In the same month...

No one is switching from iPhone over this. Or Mac. If you think that then where are all the people who switched from Android to iPhone because of Apple's CPU performance? Or switched from Windows to Mac solely for CPU performance? That didn't happen, and for the same reason it won't happen in reverse.

Intel and AMD are the ones that should be worried, that means Qualcomm PCs will not be just caught up to x86 PCs performance wise like last year but beating them. Maybe Qualcomm will be able to grab a meaningful share of Windows laptops if they can match x86 performance under emulation and beat it on native. The odds are still stacked against them because people worry about compatibility & unfamiliarity, and CPU performance/efficiency is just one dimension they consider. But they are in a better position now, and Intel/AMD better pay attention.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Intel and AMD are the ones that should be worried, that means Qualcomm PCs will not be just caught up to x86 PCs performance wise like last year but beating them.

no software, perf doesn't matter there.

Maybe Qualcomm will be able to grab a meaningful share of Windows laptops if they can match x86 performance under emulation and beat it on native.

Irrelevant. They need better product choices first.

 

[DZero]

no software, perf doesn't matter there.

Irrelevant. They need better product choices first.

Indeed, if people switches is not from X86 Windows to ARM Windows, just jump to Apple.

And in some countries people wants to jump off Apple, but sees the other side (Google's screwups) and they forget on it.
Damn Google.

Only in China they can jump off somewhere else.

 

[Tigerick]

Both 8E Gen 5 and D9500 are rumored to support up to LPDDR5x-10667. BiliBili now has leaks saying 8E Gen 5 might demo performance figures using LPDDR5x-12700 from Samsung....

Even Apple has upped the GPU figures with around 3000 scores in SNL; 8E Gen 5 and D9500 are rumored to hit 3200 scores, go figures.

 

[Doug S]

I was kind of surprised that Apple stepped all the way up to 9600 with A19P, but I guess that speed is pretty much mainstream now and 10667 and 12800 are the lower volume niche bins.

Makes me wonder if Apple might end up with something faster than 9600 for M5 Max.

 

[mvprod123]

 

[poke01]

you see the only thing i want is that 18 core cpu to be announced

 

[trivik12]

Would we hear about laptop SOC(X2) as well. Or would this be just about latest mobile SOC. Its been a while since they released X Elite as well. Marketing started end of 2023.

 

[soresu]

Would we hear about laptop SOC(X2) as well. Or would this be just about latest mobile SOC. Its been a while since they released X Elite as well. Marketing started end of 2023.

While WoA is slowly gaining traction it's at a glacial pace compared to ARMac because both QC and MS were so utterly lazy about it.

With all the mountains of money QC have to invest in the software side of things they could have paid for oodles of software engineers to speed up the process of porting to ARM and WoA native APIs for x86 legacy software (especially games).

Instead they chose to be lazy and cheap.

 

[adroc_thurston]

While WoA is slowly gaining traction it's at a glacial pace compared to ARMac because both QC and MS were so utterly lazy about it.

No, they're just incompetent.

With all the mountains of money QC have to invest in the software side of things they could have paid for oodles of software engineers to speed up the process of porting to ARM and WoA native APIs for x86 legacy software (especially games).

Qualcomm isn't that rich and no one cares about sub-1% MSS Windows platform.

 

[Doug S]

While WoA is slowly gaining traction it's at a glacial pace compared to ARMac because both QC and MS were so utterly lazy about it.

With all the mountains of money QC have to invest in the software side of things they could have paid for oodles of software engineers to speed up the process of porting to ARM and WoA native APIs for x86 legacy software (especially games).

Instead they chose to be lazy and cheap.

Apple's moved quickly because it was a migration. Everyone knew Apple was going to stop selling x86 Macs, so developers had to port and people buying new wanted the new hardware that would run new software natively. Apple was also competing against a static x86 target - Intel/AMD were still releasing better CPUs than what were in existing x86 Macs while Apple was rolling out new hardware, but Apple wasn't making Macs using them so they were irrelevant for comparison.

None of that is true for WoA. Everyone knows Microsoft is never going to stop supporting x86 Windows, and that it will always be the main platform with ARM in a lesser tier. The only question is how much "lesser". Developers have little incentive to port to ARM because there are few ARM PCs sold and Microsoft handles running their x86 binaries on those few ARM PCs.

It isn't laziness or cheapness, it is reality. Sure QC could pay (i.e. bribe) developers to port to ARM, but they'd have to keep paying them to maintain those ports and pay more every time someone comes out with a hot new game to insure it eventually is ported to ARM. Is that a good business model if constant bribery is required?

As I keep saying, there is ZERO advantage to running on ARM vs x86. Even if you can point to some benchmarks where ARM is a little faster or a little more power efficient there is no guarantee that advantage will be there next month or next year, and it isn't worth the downsides of dealing with the hassles and shortcomings of trying to live on an ARM PC in an x86 Windows world.

 

[soresu]

Is that a good business model if constant bribery is required?

Ask Intel, there's a reason there are hardly any ARM Chromebooks.

 

[DZero]

Ask Intel, there's a reason there are hardly any ARM Chromebooks.

The same who killed netbooks too?

 

[soresu]

The same who killed netbooks too?

Netbooks were a bad idea tbh, a desperate attempt to create a new market because they could see that contra revenue in smartphones just wasn't going to work with ARM's entrenched native software base on Android.

IMHO Atom wasn't efficient enough to offset the significantly smaller netbook battery running full modern Windows at the time.

 

[adroc_thurston]

a desperate attempt to create a new market because they could see that contra revenue in smartphones just wasn't going to work with ARM's entrenched native software base on Android.

You do understand that peak Netbook happened before Android became actually a thing?

IMHO Atom wasn't efficient enough to offset the significantly smaller netbook battery running full modern Windows at the time.

It did not run full modern Windows, netbooks used castrated Windows SKUs. And sometimes, Linux.

 

[DZero]

Netbooks were a bad idea tbh, a desperate attempt to create a new market because they could see that contra revenue in smartphones just wasn't going to work with ARM's entrenched native software base on Android.

IMHO Atom wasn't efficient enough to offset the significantly smaller netbook battery running full modern Windows at the time.

To be fair, netbooks weredecent. But Intel didn't wanted competition, killed nVIDIA ION and AMD's offerings. But their own way to ruin things, ended damaging the netbook market.

Funny story now ARM has a little chance with those stuff. Even Alder Lake N could stand a chance too. But let's see considering that tablets came and literally replaced netbooks.

 

[LightningZ71]

A lot of people got burned by netbooks when Intel licensed an Imagination GPU for a bunch of Atoms, then promptly abandoned all driver support for it. Then, when it came time to upgrade Windows XP, they never supplied an accelerated driver, leaving it only able to run the compatibility one.

 

[gdansk]

Qualcomm bragged about not running their phone SoC tests in a freezer. 🤣

 

[The Hardcard]

Qualcomm bragged about not running their phone SoC tests in a freezer. 🤣

That feels like that didn’t match A19 Pro numbers. I think if they could stretch some way to better scores, they would have put up the actual numbers.