The latest specifications of the upcoming Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 from Qualcomm are extremely promising, and if the SoC performs as a proper Apple M-series SoC competitor, we will have some real competition in the market. Here are more details that we know you will be interested in reading about.
Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will also give Windows-based notebooks the ability to gain cellular connectivity thanks to Qualcomm’s 5G modem, along with external GPU support
Earlier, we reported that Qualcomm was working on an unnamed SoC codenamed ‘Samoa.’ Well, it turns out that @Za_Raczke, who previously talked about the 12-core SoC, now states that the name of the silicon will be Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4. Apparently, Qualcomm is working on multiple chipsets, but the one that is said to deliver the most performance is apparently touting eight performance cores and four power-efficiency ones.
However, he does not state if the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will feature Qualcomm’s Oryon cores, which are custom solutions that will be made possible thanks to the company’s acquisition of Nuvia. Regardless, the information he shares sounds interesting on paper, with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4’s performance cores being tested at a frequency of 3.40GHz, while the energy-efficient ones are running at 2.50GHz. It is unconfirmed if these clock speeds will remain the same when the silicon is running in commercial products, but we will find out in the future.
Coming to the system cache, the tipster says that each block of 4 cores has 12MB of shared L2 cache, with 8MB of L3 cache. Surprisingly, Qualcomm is not developing a new GPU for the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 because it is said to sport the Adreno 740, the same graphics processor running in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. While it is still a powerful GPU, the limitations might start to appear when running in Windows notebooks instead of smartphones.
Leak: update on Qualcomm’s Apple M rival – 8cx Gen 4, codename Samoa 🧵 pic.twitter.com/1tptCk8ghf
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) January 20, 2023
Where the M2 Pro and M2 Max are limited to LPDDR5 RAM, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 could provide LPDDR5X support up to 64GB, with an option to run that memory at a lower frequency of 4.20GHz, likely to prioritize battery life when necessary. Wi-Fi 7 and an external Snapdragon X65 5G modem are said to be included, along with discrete GPU support over 8 lanes of PCIe 4.0.
There are also 4 lanes (configurable as 2 x 2) of PCIe 4.0 for NVMe drives, with PCIe 3.0 lanes reserved for the Wi-Fi card and modem. If manufacturers wish to use UFS 4.0 onboard memory instead of PCIe, Qualcomm is also providing that option with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 through a dedicated storage controller. It appears that the chipset maker is sprinting the extra mile because users will also get the opportunity to hook up high-resolution monitors, just like how they can do on the latest 2023 MacBook Pro models.
Not just this, but video encoding and decoding performance are also said to have improved considerably. We recommend our readers check out @Za_Raczke’s tweet if they want an in-depth rundown of what to expect from the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4. In short, we are more than excited to see what this chipset will be capable of doing, and with all the information shared today, this should be Apple’s M-series competitor that we all are clamoring for.
News Source: @Za_Raczke