SoylentNews

takyon writes:

Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 launched: First 5 nm Windows PC SoC with four Cortex-X1 cores at 3 GHz, 6 nm Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 announced too

Qualcomm today unveiled the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 and Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 Compute Platforms that will power the next wave of Windows-on-ARM Always On Always Connected PCs. The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is the first 5 nm SoC for the PC and features a 4+4 CPU with Cortex-X1 and Cortex-A78 cores along with other Qualcomm connectivity and security features.

[...] With the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, PCs are all set to get their first taste of the 5 nm architecture albeit on ARM. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is about 85% faster in CPU and 60% faster in GPU performance. The exact comparative parameters were not disclosed during the presentation, however.

The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is also slated to offer 29+ TOPS of AI performance. Once again, the comparisons aren't really obvious, but we can hazard a guess that this could be with respect to the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2.

Previously, ARM SoCs have had only a single Cortex-X core, with the exception of Google's Tensor, found in the Pixel 6, which has 2x Cortex-X1 cores.

Also at CNX Software.

See also: Qualcomm 8cx Gen 3: Too dangerous to deploy

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Flagship SoC for 2022 Devices

At this year's Tech Summit from Hawaii, it's time again for Qualcomm to unveil and detail the company's most important launch of the year, showcasing the newest Snapdragon flagship SoC that will be powering our upcoming 2022 devices. Today, as the first of a few announcements at the event, Qualcomm is announcing the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the direct follow-up to last year's Snapdragon 888.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 follows up its predecessors with a very obvious change in marketing and product naming, as the company is attempting to simplify its product naming and line-up. Still part of the "8 series", meaning the highest end segment for devices, the 8 Gen 1 resets the previous three-digit naming scheme in favor of just a segment and generation number. For Qualcomm's flagship part this is pretty straightforward, but it remains to be seen what this means for the 7 and 6 series, both of which have upwards of several parts for each generation.

As for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the new chip comes with a lot of new IP: We're seeing the new trio of Armv9 Cortex CPU cores from Arm, a whole new next-generation Adreno GPU, a massively improved imaging pipeline with lots of new features, an upgraded Hexagon NPU/DSP, integrated X65 5G modem, and all manufactured on a newer Samsung 4nm process node.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 notably lacks AV1 decode.

See also: Qualcomm phones it in for the Snapdragon Series-8 Gen 1

Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 Gaming Platform with a Razer developer kit

Qualcomm has chipsets for a ton of different devices, and an expansion to gaming was likely always on the cards. Obviously, its most famous chips are those that it makes for smartphones, but it also makes Snapdragon chips for wearables, extended reality (XR) devices, PCs, and even cars. The aim of the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 gaming platform is to unite all of the Snapdragon Elite Gaming technologies into one cohesive product. It's a chipset built purely for gaming, and Qualcomm says that it's designed to be "the PC gaming rig of mobile games". It has updateable GPU drivers for game optimizations, true 10-bit HDR gaming, support for external displays up to 4K resolution at 144FPS, USB-C for future XR accessories, and supports game streaming from the cloud, from your PC, and from your console. It has support for Qualcomm's 5G mmWave Modem-RF system too.

Given the proliferation of gaming on Android, Qualcomm has said that for now, it's focused exclusively on providing its chipset to Android devices. As a result, this doesn't look like it will end up turning into an NVIDIA Tegra/Nintendo Switch competitor — yet. Even still, this is the company's first real push into the gaming market, and it has the potential to grow into a whole lot more into the future. It didn't go too in-depth about the new chipset's capabilities, though given that the company designed a developer kit in tandem with Razer, it's clear that Qualcomm has an idea of the direction it wants to push this in. We're not entirely sure if the G3x is much faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 just yet, but we'll probably find out more about that in the near future.

Original Submission