Items tagged with snapdragon 8cx
There is little doubt that Qualcomm will launch an updated version of its Snapdragon 8cx system-on-chip (SoC) for laptops, and when it arrives, the spunky piece of hardware figures to deliver a big leap in performance over the current version. That's what a leaked benchmark run over at Geekbench seemingly indicates. The listing shows a benchmark run obtained from a Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) chip, identified as a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 part. Assuming the listing is accurate, what we are looking at is basically an engineering sample for Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon 8cx. As currently configured, it is an 8-core/16-thread processor with a 2.7GHz clock speed. Here's the benchmark listing......
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Microsoft is delivering a big update for Windows 10 on Arm today, and it's great news for those that have embraced devices like the Surface Pro X, Samsung Galaxy Book S, and Lenovo Flex 5G. The company announced today that x64 emulation is finally arriving for these Arm64 devices -- at least for Windows Insiders. Microsoft first announced that this support would be arriving back in October, and true to its word, the company is now delivering. When Arm64 devices first landed on the market, they could run native Arm64 code and traditional x32 applications through emulation. However, x64 apps have been off limits, which is a big bummer if one of your critical apps is x64-only...
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With the launch of the Apple M1 SoC last month, there's been an increased focus on Arm-based processors and native software for the platform. While the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini can run x86-64 code with the Rosetta 2 translator in macOS Big Sur, they perform best with native code. In November, Adobe released a beta version of Photoshop with native support for Arm64 code for Apple M1 Macs and Windows 10 on Arm devices. Today, Adobe is upping the stakes with Arm64 native versions of Lightroom for systems running Apple M1 (macOS Big Sur) and Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx (Windows 10 on Arm) platforms. The Lightroom CC app has been completely rebuilt (version...
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Earlier this week, Qualcomm announced its latest flagship SoC that will soon power an array of premium smartphones, branded the Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform. The Snapdragon 888 features a faster 8-core CPU complex that incorporates Arm's Cortex-X1 architecture and, for the first time in a Qualcomm flagship SoC, also includes an integrated Snapdragon X60 5G modem. One thing that the company didn't announce, however, was a new laptop-class successor to its potent Snapdragon 8cx platform that is most notably employed in the Microsoft Surface Pro X and Samsung Galaxy Book S. Regardless, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx and Windows 10 on Arm has already shown promise with excellent battery...
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While we are still in the early stages, more and more PC manufacturers have jumped aboard the Windows on Arm train. First we had Microsoft's initial offering, the Surface Pro X. Then Samsung joined the fray with the traditional-looking Galaxy Book S, with battery life that lasted for days. Now Lenovo has crashed the party with the Flex 5G, a machine with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx 5G system on a chip (SoC) stuffed inside a versatile, a do-it-all convertible 2-in-1 design. Reviewing an Arm-based Windows PC every few months gives us a glimpse into the evolution of the Arm ecosystem. At first, there weren't many production-ready apps—even Microsoft's Edge web browser was in its beta infancy...
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Windows 10 on Arm is starting to gain more traction, thanks to a bevy of new systems based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx high-performance mobile SoC, and its second-gen follow-on which was just announced. Those laptops have all been defined by two common traits: exceptional battery life with still a few lingering app compatibility issues. Some app developers have been reticent to get on board the Arm-64 express and Microsoft is yet to enable emulation for 64-bit x86 applications, which limits overall compatibility. However, when an app does have a native Arm binary performance is solid, and the system's battery life can literally last for days. Though it's taking time, the always-on always-connected...
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Qualcomm first announced its Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform way back in December 2018, which was designed to deliver PC-class performance to ultraportable Windows 10 laptops with the power-sipping credentials that Arm-based chips are known for. Since that time, we’ve seen a handful of devices that have embraced the Snapdragon 8cx including the Samsung Galaxy Book S and the Surface Pro X (which uses a slightly modified version of the SoC called the Microsoft SQ1). Now, Qualcomm is ready to deliver the next evolution in its PC-centric endeavors with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G Compute Platform. On the surface, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G doesn’t seem to offer...
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Lenovo has announced that you will soon be able to purchase its Flex 5G convertible, which was first announced back at CES 2020 (as the Yoga 5G). The Flex 5G isn’t just your run of the mill Windows 10 device, however; this one is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx 5G SoC. There aren’t many devices on the market that use the Arm-based Snapdragon 8cx 5G – the Samsung Galaxy Book S remains perhaps the most well-known of the offerings – but the chip offers respectable performance as long as you don’t require extreme heavy lifting. In other words, don’t think that you’re going to be doing 4K video editing with this machine. In...
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Always-on, always-connected PCs like the Samsung Galaxy Book S -- the kind of machines that are ready to go first thing in the morning and last all day and night, while never losing an internet connection thanks to cellular connectivity -- are a potential game changer for some users. Manufacturers have tried to make this happen with tablets, but haven't entirely been successful. Half-computers like the iPad Pro may have been "blessed" with $300 keyboards, but iPadOS can be pretty limiting for real work. This seems like a job for full-blown Windows and a proper clamshell, but x86 notebooks don't offer that same level of battery life. So, what are your options? These days, Microsoft would...
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It's finally happening! Samsung first announced its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx-based Galaxy Book S way back in August 2019 at the Galaxy Note 10 event, and it was truly an impressive beast. But months went by without another word from Samsung on the machine; that is until now. Samsung has finally opened up preorders for the Galaxy Book S, and it is definitely a device to keep an eye on thanks to its specs sheet. For starters, the Galaxy Book S has a 13.3-inch Full HD touch display along with a thin, lightweight aluminum chassis that tips the scales at just 2.11 pounds (for comparison, the Apple MacBook Air weighs 2.75 pounds). The [hardware] star of the show, however, is the PC-centric...
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Microsoft has quite a compelling device on its hands with the Surface Pro X. It's a thin and light 2-in-1 convertible that boasts amazing battery life (13 hours of VLC video looping in our tests) thanks in part to its Microsoft SQ1 ARM SoC that’s based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx. Despite the ARM processor, the Surface Pro X provides the full Windows 10 experience and for the most part has good compatibility with legacy x86-32 apps. Throw in a brilliant PixelSense display and fanless design, and you have a lightweight workhorse for those that have a daily workload that isn't overly CPU intensive. One big knock against the Surface Pro X -- by some -- has been its price...
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Around this time last year, Qualcomm announced its 7nm Snapdragon 8cx platform to empower Windows 10 on ARM Always Connected PCs (ACPC). Since that time, Samsung announced the Galaxy Book S powered by the chip, while Microsoft recently released the Surface Pro X which uses a modified version (Microsoft SQ1). While the Snapdragon 8cx is aimed at the high-end of the convertible market, Qualcomm is expanding the family with two lower-cost entries: the Snapdragon 8c and Snapdragon 7c. Like the Snapdragon 8cx, these new Windows 10-centric SoCs feature integrated 4G LTE connectivity to power Always Connected PCs with all-day battery life. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5g 2-In-1 Laptop Reference...
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Microsoft announced its Surface Pro X back in early October, and it first went on sale earlier this month. The convertible has been praised for its thin and light design, as well as its large 13-inch display. However, there have been serious questions raised about overall performance from the Arm-based Microsoft SQ1 SoC and the app compatibly. While the Surface Pro X can run native ARM64 apps in Windows 10 and 32-bit x86 app via emulation, it cannot run 64-bit x86 apps in emulation. That may change very soon according to a new report from Neowin. The publication says that although Qualcomm stated that 64-bit x86 emulation was never in the cards for its SoCs -- the SQ1 is an...
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Here it is folks; the bulk of the Surface hardware that we're expecting Microsoft to announce on at its event on Wednesday. Thanks to multiple tweets from gadget leaker Evan Blass, we have a look at the 13- and 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 along with the Surface Pro 7 and the new ARM-powered Surface. Starting off with the Surface Laptop 3, as previously reported, the laptop will be available in both 13-inch and 15-inch screen sizes. Blass posted renders of both, which share a common design language. One noted difference compared to the previous Surface Laptop 2 is that there is no Alcantara fabric covering the keyboard deck (which was also alluded to last week). Surface Laptop 3 (15-inch)...
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Today might have been the moment in the spotlight for Samsung's new Galaxy Note 10 family of flagship smartphones, but the South Korean electronics giant had another trick up its sleeve as well. The company officially announced the Galaxy Book S Always Connected Windows 10 PC, which first leaked last week. Unlike most notebooks available today which run on x86-64 processors made by either Intel or AMD, the Galaxy Book S makes uses of Qualcomm's most potent PC-centric ARM processor: the Snapdragon 8cx. The Snapdragon 8cx in this particular device is an 8-core processor with four high-power cores clocked at 2.84GHz and four low-power cores clocked at 1.8GHz. Samsung isn't giving...
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Qualcomm first gave us a taste of its new PC-centric Snapdragon 8cx SoC back in late December, and touted its performance chops with benchmarks against an Intel Core i5 (Kaby Lake-R) processor late last month. We’re now getting word that Microsoft may be eying the Snapdragon 8cx design as an option for future Surface devices. This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard about an ARM SoC being destined for a Surface product. The Surface Go was rumored to use an ARM processor until Intel made Microsoft an offer that it couldn’t refuse. According to sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans, the company has been working closely with Qualcomm...
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Qualcomm has been talking a big game when it comes to its upcoming octa-core Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform which will power Windows 10 notebooks and convertibles. In fact, Qualcomm thinks that the 7nm SoC has the muscle to go toe-to-toe with x86-64 Core processors from Intel, which is something that we couldn't say for the preceding Snapdragon 835 and Snapdragon 850 platforms for Windows 10 PCs. Today, Qualcomm is backing up that talk with some actual benchmark numbers, and things are looking very promising. Qualcomm has picked the Core i5-8250U (Kaby Lake Refresh) as the primary competition for the Snapdragon 8cx. The Core i5-8250U is a quad-core processor (8 threads) with a...
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It's been a while since we've talked about Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8cx platform for Windows 10 PCs. Like the Snapdragon 835 and Snapdragon 850 that came before it, the 7nm Snapdragon 8cx is a rather peculiar platform in that it is based on ARM architecture rather than an Intel- or AMD-based x86-64 platform. Today, we're witnessing the announcement of the world's very first 5G-enabled PC, and it of course comes packing the Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform. It's Lenovo’s Project Limitless and it takes the form of a 2-in-1 convertible Windows 10 PC. Lenovo Project Limitless Looking at the device, it seems like a pretty standard-fare convertible design that would fit neatly...
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Microsoft and Qualcomm are really pushing to get customers interested in ARM-powered Windows 10 machines. There’s no question that the Windows 10 scene is currently dominated by x86-64 processors from Intel and AMD, but ARM-powered systems promise to offer enough muscle for consumers to handle everyday tasks while delivering unmatched battery life. But in order to win customers over, there needs to be an abundance of native apps for the Windows 10 on ARM platform to deliver on the performance front. To that end Mozilla announced today that it has released a beta of the native ARM64 version of its popular Firefox browser. That means that if you’re running a Windows 10 device that...
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Qualcomm is combining one of its most powerful 64-bit SoCs with its latest innovations in 5G mobility to deliver what it calls the world’s first commercial 5G PC platform. At the heart of this new platform is the company’s Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform, which was first announced back in December 2018. The Snapdragon 8cx is Qualcomm’s first real credible challenge to Intel dominance in the laptop/2-in-1 convertible market and is built on the latest 7-nanometer process technology. The SoC employs an octa-core Kryo 495 CPU configuration and a new Adreno 680 GPU, which is said to double the performance of the GPU found in the Snapdragon 850 SoC, while offering...
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Qualcomm is making a hard push into traditional laptop territory through the Windows on ARM initiative that it and Microsoft kicked off a couple of years ago. The company's latest effort on the hardware side is its new Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform. We were able to see the new platform in action at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii on a couple of pre-production laptops. You may recall that the first Windows on ARM devices ran on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor, followed by its Snapdragon 850 SoC. The Snapdragon 8cx represents a new naming convention to help differentiate Qualcomm's computing and smartphone products, the latter of which the company pretty much dominates....
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The final day of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit is wrapping up, which means that the chip company is saving the best for last. Well, that is if you've been following the whole Windows on ARM initiative that Microsoft and Qualcomm have been pushing for the past two years. Qualcomm just unveiled the latest product in a series that started off with the Snapdragon 835 and was then succeeded by the Snapdragon 850. Meet the new Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform. This represents a new naming convention for Qualcomm, and should help to differentiate its PC computing efforts from its other solutions in the smartphone market where the company has a much stronger foothold....
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