Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

[adroc_thurston]

Don't forget Remedy or gullible indies.

Oh yeah, forgot about the turbo-finns.

 

[FlameTail]

Looks like there's a golden opportunity for some indie devs to write some native WARM games, assuming these X Elite systems sell in non-zero quantity.

We calling it "WARM" now?

 

[FlameTail]

Out of ~265m units PC TAM?

Well, SDXE is launching in the middle of this year, so it's only effectively going to be sold for the second half.

So we'll have to divide that 265m figure by half, which will br 130m

2m is 1.5% of 130m. Not bad?

 

[adroc_thurston]

So we'll have to divide that 265m figure by half, which will br 130m

PC TAM is H2 skewed (back to school, holidays, black fridays etc), particularly this year.
That would be 2m out of >170/180m units aka a rounding error.
(want to make a joke about single Strix SKU outshipping the entire QC lineup, but STX only has two! Alas).

Not bad?

Shill noise to volume ratio very bad.
They talked too much and it wins and ships too little.

Well, SDXE is launching in the middle of this year, so it's only effectively going to be sold for the second half.

So is Strix, and LNL is even later!

 

[FlameTail]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1802886287734829101

X Elite gets creamed by Apple M4 in Geekbench ML benchmark (run on the GPUs).

 

[TwistedAndy]

The new Snapdragon X Elite is a pretty nice test platform for Qualcomm. It's good enough to attract some developers.

I think the second or the third generations will be good enough for regular customers.

 

[adroc_thurston]

I think the second or the third generations will be good enough for regular customers

This is the 5th gen of WoA stuff from QC.
(835 -> 850 -> 8cx g1 -> 8cx g3 -> esxcks elite).
Should be good enough by now!

 

[FlameTail]

Does TimeSpy run natively on ARM?

 

[adroc_thurston]

Does TimeSpy run natively on ARM?

Nope.
Ignore it, that's an x86 dickmeasuring contest.

 

[FlameTail]

The Microsoft AI features update just dropped:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1diet2l/comment/l949geg

 

[FlameTail]

Youtuber JustJosh has said he'll do a livestream for unboxing and testing a horde of Snapdragon X laptops;

 

[TwistedAndy]

This is the 5th gen of WoA stuff from QC.
(835 -> 850 -> 8cx g1 -> 8cx g3 -> esxcks elite).
Should be good enough by now!

This time, Qualcomm decided to change the approach.

If throwing a mobile chip into a laptop does not work, then it makes sense to throw a more powerful one. Maybe, it will stick.

And there are chances that in a second or a third generation, we will get something usable.

 

[FlameTail]

Nope.
Ignore it, that's an x86 contest.

This is why we need all the reviewers to switch to 3DMark Steel Nomad/Light.

It's cross platform, and runs from anything from a budget smartphone to the top dog RTX 4090. Steel Nomad Light should be standard for GPU benchmarking.

 

[adroc_thurston]

This time, Qualcomm decided to change the approach.

That's not my point.
They had ample time to do all the ISV work yet here we are.

This is why we need all the reviewers to switch to 3DMark Steel Nomad/Light.

It's cross platform, and runs from anything from a budget smartphone to the top dog RTX 4090. Steel Nomad Light should be standard for GPU benchmarking.

It's the new thing and will take time for wider adoption.
Took eons for Firestrike to leave benchmark suites. Be patient.

 

[TwistedAndy]

That's not my point.
They had ample time to do all the ISV work yet here we are.

There is a lot of work to be done on the software side:
- UEFI firmware
- Drivers for GPU and other components
- ARM translation layer (Prism)
- Software and games

It will take years to make it work without noticeable issues. That's why Qualcomm decided to start with thin and light devices with no powerful GPU. There are many other problems to fix first before jumping into issues with GPU drivers and games.

So, if you consider Snapdragon X Elite as a test platform, it's not so bad. At least it offers some competitive performance, battery life, and a pretty good price. That's good enough.

Intel also has a test platform called Meteor Lake. That's normal.

 

[poke01]

There is a lot of work to be done on the software side:
- UEFI firmware
- Drivers for GPU and other components
- ARM translation layer (Prism)
- Software and games

It will take years to make it work without noticeable issues. That's why Qualcomm decided to start with thin and light devices with no powerful GPU. There are many other problems to fix first before jumping into issues with GPU drivers and games.

So, if you consider Snapdragon X Elite as a test platform, it's not so bad. At least it offers some competitive performance, battery life, and a pretty good price. That's good enough.

Intel also has a test platform called Meteor Lake. That's normal.

I wonder what "test platform" Apple released to the public? M1 was perfect the moment it came out and aged like fine wine (excluding the 8GB configs).

Nope their first iteration was on point but those are benefits of owning the whole stack.

I really hope that Lunar Lake is not a one time thing. It would keep Apple/QC on their toes.

 

[Joe NYC]

X Elite already has the PCIe lanes for dGPU, iirc.

But it does not work with any existing dGPU, which have x86 drivers.

When Jensen Huang showed a wall of AI PCs with nVidia card, they were all Strix Point.

So, Snapdragon does not compete in the premium category with high end graphics.

 

[Joe NYC]

Looks like there's a golden opportunity for some indie devs to write some native WARM games, assuming these X Elite systems sell in non-zero quantity.

Is the installed base going to hit 0.1% by the end of 2024?

Installed base is what you write software to.

 

[Nothingness]

I wonder what "test platform" Apple released to the public? M1 was perfect the moment it came out and aged like fine wine (excluding the 8GB configs).

Nope their first iteration was on point but those are benefits of owning the whole stack.

I really hope that Lunar Lake is not a one time thing. It would keep Apple/QC on their toes.

They had Axx chips on the HW side.

And on the SW side: their dev tools where generating fat binaries with AArch64 code before the switch happened; the same happened when they removed 32-bit support. That works as long as you have a walled garden.

 

[FlameTail]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1diet2l/first_impressions_of_the_surface_laptop_7_x_elite

The dude has posted an update, detailing the new AI features. Also it seems he has completely edited the post. That first sentence taking a jab at Intel is hilarious.

100% => 97% Battery: After watching an hour of few full HD (1080p) YouTube videos on Chrome at 75% brightness with speaker, my battery is still at 97%! And to top it off, I had forgotten to close Edge, which had several tabs open in the background.

97% => 73% Battery: After 2 hours of intense work, with the first hour spent running more benchmarks and downloading Photoshop, as well as downloading various software and files, I lost 15% of battery. However, during the second hour, while working normally, I only lost 9% in 1 hour. I have 73% battery left after 3 hours and 10 minutes.

73% => 62% Battery: 1h30 of online stuff on Chrome (canvas, doc, video, lot of tab), edge and slack open (call) and download all the MAJ. when you run ARM app you never lost battery

After 6h of work, install Maj, play with Photoshop, make some slack call and have Chrome and Edge open with 10tabs +. Still have 52% battery

After 8h30 on battery, I have 36% left: In the last 2:30 hours, I spent some time on Twitch, checked some YouTube videos, downloaded Windows updates (again), and used Google Docs + Slack in a taxi connected remotely to my phone.

Battery life in the Surface Laptop seems much better than the Vivobook.

 

[Tup3x]

I guess we really have to let the dust settle before drawing any conclusions.

 

[POWER4]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1802886287734829101

X Elite gets creamed by Apple M4 in Geekbench ML benchmark (run on the GPUs).

CoreML vs DirectML maybe?

I mean, one is very optimized, even codesigned I should say, for its hardware the other is not.

 

[POWER4]

Well, SDXE is launching in the middle of this year, so it's only effectively going to be sold for the second half.

So we'll have to divide that 265m figure by half, which will br 130m

2m is 1.5% of 130m. Not bad?

Kinda sad when they've announced like 20 designs (Intel announced 80) and had a big promise to deliver.

 

[SpudLobby]

Oh no, retaliation is in order.

Oh man I wish Exist50 were still active here, lol. That’s all I’m going to say, and I’m usually not cynical about AMD in servers.

 

[SpudLobby]

Is the installed base going to hit 0.1% by the end of 2024?

Installed base is what you write software to.

The several million laptops QC sells by EOY25 will be selected, e.g. not random from genpop of laptop sales. His indie idea isn’t really terrible. Granted, the pricing is hardly bad, and I won’t claim it’s some luxury, but it’s an ~~ entry premium to premium part lineup.

Tbf that’ll be less true with the future low cost part in 2025 but still a bit different.