from Hacker News

Snapdragon X elite is faster than MacBook Air M2

by akmittal on 1/18/24, 5:06 PM with 43 comments

• by jitl on 1/18/24, 5:38 PM

  The headline here on HN is editorialized for clickbait, which is against the rules. The original title is “Snapdragon X Elite vs Intel Core Ultra 7 155H: We ran the benchmarks”.

  Computers with fans and 23W-80W TDP vs computer with no fans (passively cooled) with ~10W TDP. The headline is frustrating because neither it or the article discuss the difference between dissipation and power draw, or performance per watt on either measure.

• by Philip-J-Fry on 1/18/24, 5:29 PM

  I don't care how fast the laptop is to be honest. Most have been fast enough for what I need to do for years.

  What I care about is battery life. Get me a Windows laptop as small as a MacBook Air with as good of a display that lasts as long or longer on battery. Then I'll be interested.

  The new Snapdragon processors seem like a step in the right direction though.

• by akmittal on 1/18/24, 5:11 PM

  Apple M2 consumes roughly 20 watt and snapdragon X elite is at 23 watt. They are comparing an active cooled snapdragon with Macbook air which does not have a fan.

• by r00fus on 1/18/24, 6:17 PM

  It's quite misleading - there are 2 variations of this processor: The Elite A which is quite a beast (80W TDP) and the Elite B (which is very in-line with the M2 - 23W TDP but actively cooled).

  I'm surprised the year-old M2 does as well as it does with passive cooling.

  I'd love to see active benchmarks of the Elite A vs. M2 Max/Ultra.

  All in all, happy to see some competitive moves in this space.

• by jeffbee on 1/18/24, 5:45 PM

  What kinds of operating systems can we expect to work well on these? Could there be a Chromebook in the works? Would love to see that.

• by TillE on 1/18/24, 6:23 PM

  Windows 11 for ARM64 is quite good (with full x86/x64 emulation for everything but drivers), the adoption of ARM in laptops has been going slower than I'd expected. Hopefully SoCs like this will accelerate that process.

• by 6R1M0R4CL3 on 1/18/24, 6:24 PM

  being faster, on paper, is not enough.

  i have seen radeon cards with better hardware specs, end up behind cheaper and less power nvidia cards on _every_ _single_ _tested_ _gane_.

  people using apple hardware are not only interested in pure hardware raw performance. you have an ecosystem, an operating system. sometimes, a single app makes someone buy a mac (musicians, artists...).

  if that chip is "faster" but requires me to use windows 11 or later, you can shove it up your ass.