Discussion Qualcomm Snapdragon Thread

[Nothingness]

That's not a naming scheme problem, we can have good naming schemes. The problem with the good ones is they are not misleading enough to trick customers into thinking old products are brand new.

They are brand new, and they are better because higher number FTW!!!!!!!11111111111111!

 

[Thibsie]

Exactly. As it stands now, there is only one SKU of the Snapdragon X Elite.

Our discussion is, what if Qualcomm releases a cut down part with say... 8 CPU cores?

How will/should this thing be named?

Properly. But we dunno if they will so why this (IMO) useless speculation?

 

[Henry swagger]

https://x.com/QaM_Section31/status/1749810504498122787?s=20

A17 Pro data for comparison;

View attachment 92367View attachment 92368View attachment 92369
5.47W for Oryon P-core seems decent.

14W all core power consumption is also solid, in line with A17 Pro.

However- what's concerning is the 1.1W power consumption of the Oryon-E core..

It's absurd how ludicrously efficient Apple's E cores are.

Arm e-cores getting destroyed by apple e cores

 

[FlameTail]

Arm e-cores getting destroyed by apple e cores

Sheer obliteration

 

[SarahKerrigan]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you kindly for your explanation.

// the litigation

Unrelatedly, Qualcomm has asked for a delay in the Arm v Qualcomm trial (currently set for Sep 2024, well after the X Elite launch).

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64938776/arm-ltd-v-qualcomm-inc/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

//

Then the Judge (again, IIRC) ruled against Qualcomm re: discovery and Qualcomm won't get Ampere's ALA. Apple's ALA & Ampere's ALA were the only two requested I can see. Who else even ships Arm hardware via an ALA? Fujitsu, with the A64FX?

Arm's claim seems to be that Arm changed its business model after Qualcomm is claimed to have broken NUVIA's ALA contract. Qualcomm says "prove you changed it" with the latest ALAs. Judge decided Qualcomm had other means (e.g., financial discovery, etc.) to see Arm's changed its business model, without viewing competitors' ALAs.

Huawei, probably Phytium, Nvidia (mainly for older products like TX2 and Xavier, but still shipping), Fujitsu as you mentioned, Marvell (two different kinds of custom ARM64 cores with two different origins.) Not sure offhand who else. It's a sparser field than it used to be.

 

[Thibsie]

Huawei, probably Phytium, Nvidia (mainly for older products like TX2 and Xavier, but still shipping), Fujitsu as you mentioned, Marvell (two different kinds of custom ARM64 cores with two different origins.) Not sure offhand who else. It's a sparser field than it used to be.

AMD?

 

[SpudLobby]

https://x.com/gus33000/status/1751264848871080032?s=46

Snapdragon X “Plus” SKUs! Probably those 6+4 ones with lower clocks that were rumored.

 

[SpudLobby]

Exactly. As it stands now, there is only one SKU of the Snapdragon X Elite.

Our discussion is, what if Qualcomm releases a cut down part with say... 8 CPU cores?

How will/should this thing be named?

Well it seems like X Plus is their go to.

IMHO: fantastic strategy that mimics more of Apple on simplicity than AMD and Intel’s mess.

Plus vs Elite, someday I could see them doing Pro or something too.

 

[SpudLobby]

Also

The Arm A720 E cores when downclocked to 2GHz are about 2x more energy for a bit more performance than Apple in spec (when taking the whole platform power).

That’s not ideal, but it’s not that bad and those A720’s scale up more. AMD and Intel also have absolutely no competition for this segment of “E Core”, so get real, fellas.

If Qualcomm’s E Cores use 1W and are about A720-tier on performance, that’s fine. They might even be faster at that wattage — which means less total energy consumption.

Apple also uses much more SRAM than the A720 from the L1 to L2 even to the SLC which is at best similar (which is Apple’s L3 and SLC functionally) in the A17 vs the 8 Gen 3’s L3 + SLC.

If anything Qualcomm’s E Cores might be better than the A720 on total energy consumption at similar performances because they’ll spend a bit more on SRAM.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

AMD?

Doesn't, and hasn't, shipped a custom-core product. I suspect they no longer have such a project, and that if they ultimately sell ARM PCs, it will be with Cortex-X.

 

[SpudLobby]

Doesn't, and hasn't, shipped a custom-core product. I suspect they no longer have such a project, and that if they ultimately sell ARM PCs, it will be with Cortex-X.

Yep. They might do a custom part for MS, and absolutely it will be Cortex X with their Xilinx & RDNA3.5/4 IP as their big wins, IMHO. The *only* reason I can see them doing a custom Arm core is when/if they sign a deal with Arm on favorable architectural terms and everyone just uses Arm’s ISA someday.
IOW, if they ported the whole Ryzen & Zen client lineup to Arm. Then of course we’d get a Zen core but using Arm.

Not saying that’s likely, just saying that’s the one scenario it makes sense. Smaller volume custom parts don’t justify a custom Arm core.

 

[gdansk]

I thought this was a bit funny. GB6 results for my new phone (Snapdragon 8gen3, ~$750 on sale) vs my newish laptop (1250U, ~$800 on sale, nominally 9W TDP but 25W PL1):

Dell Inc. XPS 9315 vs samsung SM-S926U1 - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

And the laptop had its fan screaming for the last half of the benchmark. ARM can't kill these old dinosaurs fast enough.

 

[Doug S]

Well it seems like X Plus is their go to.

IMHO: fantastic strategy that mimics more of Apple on simplicity than AMD and Intel’s mess.

Plus vs Elite, someday I could see them doing Pro or something too.

Make more sense to have the base model with no suffix, than to have Plus, Pro, Elite.

 

[SpudLobby]

Make more sense to have the base model with no suffix, than to have Plus, Pro, Elite.

Sure that’s true.

 

[hemedans]

I thought this was a bit funny. GB6 results for my new phone (Snapdragon 8gen3, ~$750 on sale) vs my newish laptop (1250U, ~$800 on sale, nominally 9W TDP but 25W PL1):

Dell Inc. XPS 9315 vs samsung SM-S926U1 - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

And the laptop had its fan screaming for the last half of the benchmark. ARM can't kill these old dinosaurs fast enough.

Sd 8 gen 3 use like 17W, if task stress both Cpu and GPU probably going to use more than that. Do any intensive benchmark like 3dmark wildlife extreme and your phone will throttle to 40-50%.

 

[gdansk]

Sd 8 gen 3 use like 17W, if task stress both Cpu and GPU probably going to use more than that. Do any intensive benchmark like 3dmark wildlife extreme and your phone will throttle to 40-50%.

And? This is a CPU benchmark. The 1250U is at PL2 29W down to PL1 of 25W after 28 seconds. It would throttle even more if it didn't have a fan like the 8g3.
MTL-U should be more competitive than ADL-U when it appears. But I don't see any fanless Intel-powered laptops still. Maybe a midrange SDXE SKU would be able to pull that off.

 

[DaaQ]

View attachment 89710View attachment 89711View attachment 89712
Assuming that leak is correct about the 8G4 , it would mark the 3rd consecutive generation of massive MT performance uplift. 3900 -> 5200 -> 7200 -> 10 000

This is insane. We haven't seen this rate of massive generational uplifts in the mobile CPU space, since it's early days. In fact, it means the 8G4 is matching the Apple M2 in MT!

View attachment 89713
Now what can we infer from that leak regarding the composition of cores?

It's rumoured the 8G4 will have a 2+6 CPU.


View attachment 89714

View attachment 89715
It's interesting how these cores are named. Phoenix-I is the P-core and Phoenix-M is the E-core. But what's interesting is they both share the Phoenix name. Does this mean Qualcomm isn't designing a ground up new E-core? It sounds like how Zen4C is a derivative of Zen4.

Asking you because you seem to be knowledgeable on these particular chips.

I have a 2021?? Moto Edge plus, Wife got a newer version with the SD G1 chip in it. She has way more issues and battery problems, I attribute to use case.

Mines i s paid off, I was looking at some offerings, and flagship had the SD G2 chip in it. Wasn't impressed enough to jump the upgrade. My phone, will last a work shift in my truck using headphone jack into aux port for stereo playing youtube music for 8 hours, wont go below 50% battery on a 9 hours shift. I stopped playing "A" game on it, mainly browse internet, or texting.

Is Lenovo (Motorola) just that far behind the curve on flagship SOCs?

Their battery life, antenna reception, and some exclusive moto features like twist the wrist for camera or chop for flashlight, are some things I am not willing to give up. They also seem to have a less bloated OS than say Samsung. My work phone is a Galaxy s10e, it's locked down pretty hard by work, but still. has it's SS quirks I do NOT like.

Any insights on the SD G3? and what phones it may be used in?

 

[SpudLobby]

Sd 8 gen 3 use like 17W, if task stress both Cpu and GPU probably going to use more than that. Do any intensive benchmark like 3dmark wildlife extreme and your phone will throttle to 40-50%.

I mean duh, it’s in a phone, and a phone chip that has less area devoted to MT than would be if they made a laptop chip, both in terms of big cores and cache, and so the perf/W would actually improve at say 10+W if QC made an X4 + A720 laptop SoC.


At any rate it uses that at it’s peak, so what? The individual performance per watt curves for ST performance — and with the whole platform — blow anything from AMD and Intel out of the water. ~ 1680 GB5 ST at roughly 4.5W of active power? AMD can do more, but only at 15-25W (likewise Intel even with Meteor Lake) and iso-performance I am skeptical they’d be able to match that power consumption. The X4 in spite of the power bloat is still a fantastic core closer to Apple than it is AMD/Intel’s bloat for obvious reasons but still.

Likewise AMD and Intel have nothing with the power *and* area footprint of an A720 at the same performance, much less Apple on energy (albeit at greater area cost.)

So it is still pretty interesting to me how competitive “even” generic Arm core is in a 64B, cut down phone chip.

 

[FlameTail]

Well it seems like X Plus is their go to.

IMHO: fantastic strategy that mimics more of Apple on simplicity than AMD and Intel’s mess.

Plus vs Elite, someday I could see them doing Pro or something too.

They should also do the "Ultimate" suffix

Snapdragon X Ultimate

How cool does that sound!

Mr. Gerard, Mr, Bruno; are you reading this thread? We have a suggestion.

 

[gdansk]

They should also do the "Ultimate" suffix

Snapdragon X Ultimate

How cool does that sound!

Mr. Gerard, Mr, Bruno; are you reading this thread? We have a suggestion.

Ultimate means final, bad idea. Can't wait for the Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2 Ultimate.

 

[FlameTail]

Asking you because you seem to be knowledgeable on these particular chips.

Mines i s paid off, I was looking at some offerings, and flagship had the SD G2 chip in it. Wasn't impressed enough to jump the upgrade. My phone, will last a work shift in my truck using headphone jack into aux port for stereo playing youtube music for 8 hours, wont go below 50% battery on a 9 hours shift. I stopped playing "A" game on it, mainly browse internet, or texting.

Is Lenovo (Motorola) just that far behind the curve on flagship SOCs?

Their battery life, antenna reception, and some exclusive moto features like twist the wrist for camera or chop for flashlight, are some things I am not willing to give up. They also seem to have a less bloated OS than say Samsung. My work phone is a Galaxy s10e, it's locked down pretty hard by work, but still. has it's SS quirks I do NOT like.

Any insights on the SD G3? and what phones it may be used in?

When you say SD G1, SD G2, SD G3, I assume you are talking about the SD 8 G1, SD 8 G2 and SD 8 G3?

It's important to mention the tier number (8,7,6). Coz other chios like SD 7 G3, SD 6 G1, SD 4 G2, SD 6 G2 exist.

I have a 2021?? Moto Edge plus, Wife got a newer version with the SD G1 chip in it. She has way more issues and battery problems, I attribute to use case.

Ah. That's not surprising. The SD 8 G1 was a notoriously bad chip. Perhaps the worst one in all of Snapdragon's recent history.


Look at this power curve. You can see how inefficient the SD 8 G1 is. The result of that is the phones will heat up a lot more and the battery life will be worse.

SD 8+ G1 (note the "+"), SD 8 G2 and SD 8 G3 are all good chips. You can't go wrong with any of these. If you want the best performance and are willing to spend more, you can get an SD 8 G3 phone.

 

[FlameTail]

Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2 Ultimate.

What is that caricature...

It should be like this:

Snapdragon X Ultimate
Snapdragon X2 Ultimate
Snapdragon X3 Ultimate
Snapdragon X4 Ultimate
Etc...

I think Qualcomm should quite drop the "Gen" from the naming scheme.

Ultimate means final

That's not what I (or most people) think when I hear the word 'Ultimate'.

 

[FlameTail]

I mean duh, it’s in a phone, and a phone chip that has less area devoted to MT than would be if they made a laptop chip, both in terms of big cores and cache, and so the perf/W would actually improve at say 10+W if QC made an X4 + A720 laptop SoC.


At any rate it uses that at it’s peak, so what? The individual performance per watt curves for ST performance — and with the whole platform — blow anything from AMD and Intel out of the water. ~ 1680 GB5 ST at roughly 4.5W of active power? AMD can do more, but only at 15-25W (likewise Intel even with Meteor Lake) and iso-performance I am skeptical they’d be able to match that power consumption. The X4 in spite of the power bloat is still a fantastic core closer to Apple than it is AMD/Intel’s bloat for obvious reasons but still.

Likewise AMD and Intel have nothing with the power *and* area footprint of an A720 at the same performance, much less Apple on energy (albeit at greater area cost.)

So it is still pretty interesting to me how competitive “even” generic Arm core is in a 64B, cut down phone chip.

Imma do some math.

We are gonna use GB5 Multi-core, since GB5's multi-core scales properly compared to GB6.

My goal: To attempt to guess how powerful Phoenix-M, the efficiency core of the 8 Gen 4 is.

Let's take the Apple A17 Pro.

GB5 MC: 6500 points

We know that the P core in the A17 Pro has 3x the performance of the E core. (Source Geekerwan SPEC2017).

From that we can write an equation

E-core = a
P-core = 3a

2 P-cores + 4 E-cores = 6500

2 (3a) + 4 (a) = 6500

10a = 6500

a = 650.

Therefore,
P-core = 1950 points
E-core = 650 points

Now I'll tell you the reason why I did all this calculation for A17 Pro. It is because the P-core in A17 Pro and P-core in SD8G4 are very similar, judging by the leaked benchmarks.

Hence we'll assume that the SD8G4 P-core (Phoenix-L) has the same score as A17 Pro P-core.

SD 8G4
GB5 MC : 9000 points (leaked)

2 (Phoenix-L) + 6 (Phoenix-M) = 9000
2 (1950) + 6 (Phoenix-M) = 9000
3900 + 6 (Phoenix-M) = 9000
6 (Phoenix-M) = 5100
Phoenix-M = 850

It's some rough math, but we ended up with Phoenix-M = 850.

That means Phoenix-M is about 30% faster than A17 Pro E-core.

 

[FlameTail]

https://x.com/gus33000/status/1751264848871080032?s=46

Snapdragon X “Plus” SKUs! Probably those 6+4 ones with lower clocks that were rumored.

What on earth is 6+4?

Is this a new die?

 

[FlameTail]

The existence of the Snapdragon X Plus is great news. It means we will get much more affordable laptops with Snapragon X processors.