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Qualcomm Previews Snapdragon X Elite SoC: Oryon CPU Starts in Laptops

by paulpan on 10/24/23, 7:25 PM with 16 comments

• by paulpan on 10/24/23, 7:32 PM

  So this is the long-awaited announcement on the fruits of Qualcomm's Nuvia acquisition a few years ago. The main and only relevant question is how it'll measure up against the Apple M3, AMD Z2, and Intel Meteor Lake chips next year.

  Interesting that there's no hint of its relative single-thread performance. Wonder how the custom Oryon core stacks up against the ARM vanilla X4.

• by peter_d_sherman on 10/24/23, 10:05 PM

  Historically, the bottleneck in all CPU's -- has been the speed at which data can be transferred from/to main memory.

  A large on-board CPU cache -- solves that for smaller programs whose code and data can entirely fit into that cache.

  But for larger programs whose code and data do not fit entirely into a CPU's cache -- the bottleneck is "how fast does it read/write from main memory?".

  Here, for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite -- we are given a figure for that, of 136GB/sec.

  Is it really that fast? Well, future benchmarking to confirm that number will have to take place. But if it really is that fast -- then that would be pretty respectable for a 2023 consumer CPU...

• by beebeepka on 10/24/23, 9:32 PM

  These are some bold claims. Higher performance than m2 max, or matching it at 30% less power.

  I hope it's true because it sounds pretty amazing. AMD may have to release an arm chip too or they will be pushed out of the consumer market

• by apatheticonion on 10/25/23, 2:42 AM

  Though I know the CPU itself has nothing to do with how the manufacturers build the laptops - I hope to dog that they make laptops that are as nice to use as the MBPs.

  High quality track pads, great high refresh screens, tiny adapters (or just use your mobile phone charger) and fantastic battery life.

  First class Linux support would make a "must buy" device.

  If they deliver on that, other than compatibility, it would be the best portable development environment available. Combine that with FEX and Proton, it might prove to be a competent gaming device.

  So much potential here, I shouldn't get my hopes up...

• by cherryteastain on 10/24/23, 10:51 PM

  Do we know if the bootloader will be unlocked? Will we finally get laptops that can run aarch64 Linux distros out-of-the-box?

  Otherwise, as a Linux user, I'd have to stick with x86.

• by ZuLuuuuuu on 10/24/23, 11:25 PM

  I wish they showed a few new laptop models that will be coming out with this CPU.

• by Koshkin on 10/24/23, 8:09 PM

  Windows: mentioned 8 times

  Linux: mentioned 0 times (not counting Android)