#Snapdragon

Microsoft is holding a Surface event next week on May 6. The company is likely to release smaller Surface laptops to replace Surface Go and Surface Laptop Go.

Qualcomm has finally unveiled the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset. It doesn't feature the Oryon CPU cores, instead, you get eight Kryo CPU cores. However, on the graphics side, the Adreno 825 GPU is plenty powerful with support for HW-accelerated Ray Tracing and Global Illumination.

Qualcomm is reportedly developing a desktop Arm processor with 18 Oryon v3 CPU cores. It might be called "Snapdragon X2 Ultra Premium". The processor is coupled with 48GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD.

The new slower Snapdragon 8 Elite variant codenamed SM850-3-AB is a hepta-core processor with one less performance core compared to 8 Elite. Qualcomm says the altered 8 Elite still achieves significant performance gains over the 8 Gen 3. It is expected to be used by manufacturers who want to save on hefty costs including the fully-fledged 8 Elite.

The Snapdragon X is geared more toward mainstream and budget offerings. Unlike X Elite and X Plus, X has only one SKU on offer which is the X1-26-100. Considering the slightly watered down specifications, we expect Snapdragon X1-26-100 powered laptops to be included in laptops that cost $500-$600.

Qualcomm has revealed a new Snapdragon X processor lineup that will target the sub-$600 PC market. It will go even below the 8-core Snapdragon X Plus SKU.

Qualcomm revealed that the next-gen Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2 will feature Oryon v3 CPU cores for Windows PCs. It's supposedly much better at performance and efficiency than Oryon v2 and v1 cores.

The iQOO 13 is the second phone in the world to feature the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite. It comes with a 2K OLED display, triple 50 MP rear cameras, 6,150 mAh battery with 120W charging, and OriginOS 5 based on Android 15. Besides, it boasts UFS 4.0 storage and LPDDR5X RAM. The phone comes in four colors and the base 12GB RAM and 256 GB storage variant starts at RMB 3,999 which is around $560 or Rs 47,000.

In a major escalation, Arm has issued a 60-day notice of cancellation to Qualcomm, threatening to cancel its architectural license. The legal dispute is over the Oryon CPU developed by Nuvia inside Qualcomm. The original license given to Nuvia was for developing server CPUs. The trial will start in December 2024.

In the latest leak, we see the Snapdragon 8 Elite's AnTuTu score in all its glory, beating the Apple A18 Pro by a large margin. Find all you need to know about it right here!

Qualcomm is reportedly working on the second generation of Snapdragon X2 Elite chipsets. The model number is "SC8480XP" and the internal codename is "Project Glymur." Besides that, Qualcomm may introduce a new 8-core Snapdragon X Plus SKU, X1P-24-100, into the market.

Qualcomm has launched three new Snapdragon X Plus chipsets to bring down the price of Windows ARM laptops. One SKU has 10 Oryon cores and the other two SKUs have 8 CPU cores. While the CPU performance is expected to be good, the GPU performance on the bottom two SKUs has taken a significant hit.

A new leak suggests that Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will pack Oryon CPU cores, built on a 3nm process node. It will have an octa-core CPU setup, and two performance cores can reach up to 4.09GHz frequency. There is also a new 8-series Adreno 830 GPU for impressive graphics performance and power efficiency.

Qualcomm is launching the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 processor, aiming to bring gigabit 5G speeds to entry-level smartphones, which will be initially available in Xiaomi devices. This underpowered version of last year's Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 features 2 performance cores, 6 efficiency cores, 80 MP single-shot photos, and 40-watt fast charging. It's a significant step towards making 5G technology more accessible to all.

The Snapdragon for India event will be held in Delhi on July 30. The company has also said there will be two "Historic Announcements" during the event. One of them could be the official launch of Copilot+ PCs in India, while the other could be a 5G phone launch in partnership with Jio.

Qualcomm's X Elite developer kit costs $899 and it comes with a special edition 12-core X Elite processor, 32GB LPDDR5X RAM, 512GB of m.2 NVMe storage, and lots of I/O. The kit will go on sale starting June 18, the same day the first batch X Elite Copilot Plus PCs go on sale.

Apple's M4 processor's impressive benchmark scores have prompted Qualcomm to reconsider their upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 application processor's design. The redesign, finalizing in June, aims for a 4.26GHz clock speed using Qualcomm's own Phoenix cores, targeting Apple's A18 chip.

Qualcomm has introduced its second chipset for Windows PCs, the Snapdragon X Plus. It features 10 Oryon CPU cores, instead of 12, and the CPU is clocked up to 3.4GHz. There is no dual-core boost in the Plus variant. And the Adreno GPU can perform up to 3.8 TFLOPS. The Hexagon NPU is the same on both SD X Elite and SD X Plus with performance of up to 45 TOPS.

Just before the Snapdragon X series launch, a Geekbench listing appeared running the Snapdragon X Plus chipset. It's the toned-down version of Snapdragon X Elite and comes with 10 CPU cores. The base frequency is reported to be 3.42GHz and packs 16GB of RAM. The device named "OEMMN OEMMN" is said to be the upcoming Surface Pro 10.

Qualcomm is officially going to debut the Snapdragon X series chipset for PCs on April 24th. Apart from the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite, there is another variant called Snapdragon X Plus with 8 CPU cores and 5G connectivity. Reportedly, there are as many as eight different SKUs of the chipset in different power profiles, from 23W to 80W. Lenovo is also reported to launch its first AI PC in China on April 20th with the Snapdragon X series processor.

Here is a sneak peek of the first Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop. Courtesy of an X user, the leaked images show the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite processor in full glory. It also comes with a dedicated Copilot key. The specifications are not known as of now.

Apart from Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm is also working on a new Snapdragon X Plus variant for Windows PCs. It may come with 10 Oryon CPU cores, instead of 12, and may pack a Snapdragon 5G modem as well. Qualcomm is testing two variants of the chipset internally.

At the Game Developers Conference 2024, a Qualcomm Engineer presented a session on how PC games would run on the Snapdragon X Elite platform. Qualcomm is quite confident that PC games would work even when they are not ported to ARM64 architecture. The company is testing top Steam games on the new ARM platform. Besides that, Qualcomm has prepared Adreno GPU drivers for DirectX 11, 12, Vulkan, and OpenCL.

While the new "8s" series chipset by Qualcomm may confuse consumers, the segment has been introduced to enhance the "price to performance ratio" aka to reduce the 8 series chipset price with some compromises. There are some downgrades in CPU, GPU, ISP, and other departments, however, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is still in the realm of a flagship SoC. Qualcomm says smartphones powered by Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 will be released by Xiaomi, Redmi, Realme, iQOO, and other OEMs in the coming months.

iQOO has launched its latest flagship phone, the iQOO 12 in India, which is the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 smartphone in the country. It comes packed with features like a 64MP periscope lens with 3x optical zoom, paired with 50MP main camera and 50MP ultra-wide. Available in two storage and RAM options (12GB+256GB and 16GB+512GB), iQOO 12 starts at Rs 49,999 for the base variant, including instant discount of Rs 3,000 on ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank cards.