Not a single benchmark even against the previous generation. Just a "legendary leap in performance".
They showed benchmarks in the video but it's probably best to wait for independent reviews anyway.
Phoronix!
Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
101–110 of 223 posts
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible [EDIT: see reply, I…
Does Remote Desktop into the Surface work well? When I'm home, I often just remote desktop into my laptop. I'm wondering if remoting into ARM Windows is as good?
I have a similar Windows Arm64 machine (Lenovo "IdeaPad 5 Slim"), RDP into it works OK.
There is one issue I ran into that I haven't on my (self-built) Windows desktops: when Windows Hello (fingerprint lock) is enabled, and neither machine is on a Windows domain, the RDP client will just refuse to authenticate.
I had to use a trick to "cache" the password on the "server" end first, see https://superuser.com/questions/1715525/how-to-login-windows...
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Their top model still only has "Up to 228 GB/s" bandwdith which places it in the low end category for anything AI related, for comparison Apple Silicon is up to 800GB/s Most Apple Silicon is much less than 800 GB/s. The base M4 is only 120GB/s and the next step up M4 Pro is 273GB/s. That’s in the same range as this part. It’s not until you step up to the high end M4 Max parts that Apple’s memory bandwidth starts to…
As I stated this is the top Qualcomm model we're talking about, not the base which is significantly lower. Given their top model underperforms the most common M4 chip and the M5 is about to be released it's not very impressive at all. Even the old M2 Max in my early 2023 MacBook Pro has 400GB/s.
The base model X2 Elite has memory bandwidth of 152 GB/s. M4 Pro is a modest win against the Extreme as mentioned, and Qualcomm has no M4 Max competitor that I'm aware of.
https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets...
I think the pure hardware specs compare reasonably against AS, aside from the lack of a Max of course. Apple's vertical integration and power efficiency make their product much more compelling though, at least to me. (Qualcomm, call me when the Linux support is good.)
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s brutal.. I wonder why the Apple Silicon transition seemed so much smoother in comparison.
Because Apple controls verything vs Windows/Linux world where hundres (thouthands?) of OEM create things?
I agree with you on the Windows side.
Linux is different. Decades of being tied to x86 made the OS way more coupled with the processor family than one might think.
Decades of bugfixes, optimizations and workarounds were made assuming a standard BIOS and ACPI standards.
Specially on the desktop side.
That, and the fact that SoC vendors are decades behind on driver quality. They remind me of the NDiswrapper era.
Also, a personal theory I have is that have unfair expectations with ARM Linux. Back then, when x86 Linux had similar compatibility problems, there was nothing to be compared with, so people just accepted that Linux was going to be a pain and that was it.
Now the bar is higher. People expect Linux to work the way it does in x86, in 2025.
And manpower in FOSS is always limited.
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most apps for dev work actually work; - RStudio - VS Code - WSL2 - Fusion 360 - Docker Only major exception is: - Android Studio's Emulator (although, the IDE does work)
Yeah, I too was surprised to find the dev experience very good: all JetBrains IDEs work well, Visual Studio appears to work fine, and most language toolchains seem well supported.
JetBrains stuff (love it!) is built on Java, so I’m not terribly surprised. I don’t know how much native code there is though.
Plus they’ve been through the Apple Silicon change, so it’s not the first time they’ve been on non-x86 either.
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#106It doesn't say which generation of core is it. Are they the same as the one in Elite Gen 5? Has Microsoft actually pushed for the ARM changes? Because I don't believe Qualcomm can do it alone.
Yes, it's the same Oryon V3. AFAIK Windows on ARM is completely pushed by Microsoft (obviously they're limited by their own competence) and Qualcomm has been kind of phoning it in.
I trust MS in this. NT has been multi-arch since day one. x86 wasn’t even the original lead architecture.
They also know the score. Intel is not in a good place, and Apple has been showing them up in lower power segments like laptops, which happen to be the #1 non-server segment by far.
They don’t want to risk getting stuck the way Apple did three times (68k, POC, Intel) where someone else was limiting their sales.
So they’re laying groundwork. If it’s a backup plan, they’re ready. If ARM takes off and x86 keeps going well, they’re even better off.
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#107“Multi-day” battery life sounds wild! That’s probably the biggest thing for users. It would be good for Apple to get some competition because their M-chips seemed so far away from everything else.
Careful; the multi-day claims may depend on having an unrealistically huge battery, or being active only sporadically across the time period.
Still, even if someone uses it for two hours a day and then just closes it being able to run for multiple days without charging the way Macs can is fantastic.
I agree it seems incredibly unlikely that you’re doing multiple days of eight hours of work without charging.
Longer is always better, so if it’s true at all great for them.
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#108why is it so hard for these companies to do any kind of descent marketing? more importantly, when do we get descent macbook air competitors?
They’re not marketing to consumers, or even really enthusiasts though right?
They’re marketing to OEMs.
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible [EDIT: see reply, I…
Does Remote Desktop into the Surface work well? When I'm home, I often just remote desktop into my laptop. I'm wondering if remoting into ARM Windows is as good?
Yes everything in user space works as expected. Note that NT has supported non-x86 processors since 1992.
Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible [EDIT: see reply, I…
That’s brutal.. I wonder why the Apple Silicon transition seemed so much smoother in comparison.
The first few months were a little tricky depending on what software you needed, but it did smooth out pretty quickly.