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Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

tomshardware.com

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Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#21

Post by watersb »

nightowl_games wrote: post #5

I'm under the impression that apple silicons dominance largely comes from TSMC. And that Qualcomm won't be able to match that. Am I wrong here?

Apple's core "Silicon" team was the Centaur Technologies chip design group. At the time, they had brought to market a PowerPC CPU chip that was a breakthrough in performance per watt -- for 32-bit PowerPC. Which had already lost to Intel for mainstream applications.

At Apple, Centaur joined engineers who had helped to develop early ARM RISC processors.

While I know that the talent pool migrates, engineers have moved on, Apple has retained deep institutional knowledge of how to build systems that work really well. And developed teams worldwide to deliver manufacturing at scale.

By no means are they the only company to do so. Vast resources in competition. But please understand that Apple isn't new to full-stack hardware design.

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#23

Post by popcalc »

betaby wrote: post #8
popcalc wrote: post #3

Can I run linux on the iPhone 12? And not talking about UTM VMs.

You can not run Linux on IPhone 12. Neither you can run Linux on Snapdragon X laptops in any meaningful way, today. While there was some Linux demos before Computex, there was no Linux demos on Computex, and people presenting the laptops were declining to comment about Linux.

Incorrect.

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/In-the-media-TUXEDO-proto...

"TUXEDO Computers showcased a prototype of its ARM notebook at the Computex trade fair in Taiwan. This prototype is part of the company’s ongoing project, internally dubbed “Drako,” aiming to port TUXEDO OS with KDE Plasma to the ARM platform. The development is currently in the alpha stage, with some drivers still pending. TUXEDO is optimistic about resolving these issues with the next two kernel versions. While a release date is not yet set, the possibility of an ARM notebook under Christmas trees in 2024 is tantalizingly close."

"Qualcomm has been working to ensure good Linux support for the Snapdragon X Elite high-end laptop SoC. That work is still ongoing but the initial bits are already in the mainline kernel while other optimizations and other features remain in the works. So far for the Snapdragon X Elite has been many vendors showing off Microsoft Windows based laptops but it looks like from at least TUXEDO Computers there will be a Linux-focused laptop using this ARM64 chip."

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#24

Post by popcalc »

r00fus wrote: post #16
popcalc wrote: post #3

Can I run linux on the iPhone 12? And not talking about UTM VMs.

No but you can run Linux on the Apple m-series laptops using Asahi Linux. This is a laptop chip, right?

When you rely on volunteers blindly reverse engineering Apple hardware you're never going to reach a level of support and stability that meets mission-critical requirements. It's a hobbyist solution.

"Qualcomm has been working to ensure good Linux support for the Snapdragon X Elite high-end laptop SoC. That work is still ongoing but the initial bits are already in the mainline kernel while other optimizations and other features remain in the works. So far for the Snapdragon X Elite has been many vendors showing off Microsoft Windows based laptops but it looks like from at least TUXEDO Computers there will be a Linux-focused laptop using this ARM64 chip."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TEBKEhhcqM

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#25

Post by [deleted] »

acdha wrote: post #10
nightowl_games wrote: post #5

I'm under the impression that apple silicons dominance largely comes from TSMC. And that Qualcomm won't be able to match that. Am I wrong here?

It’s not just TSMC - they also have a very good CPU team giving AMD heartburn even when you compare the chips on the same TSMC process, and they have the part which is hardest to match: they control the OS, compilers, libraries, and key apps. That allows them to ensure that hardware acceleration is actually used, tailor chips for the power and usage patterns their devices need, and avoid the conflicts of interest inh…

[deleted]

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#26

Post by huxley »

watersb wrote: post #21
nightowl_games wrote: post #5

I'm under the impression that apple silicons dominance largely comes from TSMC. And that Qualcomm won't be able to match that. Am I wrong here?

Apple's core "Silicon" team was the Centaur Technologies chip design group. At the time, they had brought to market a PowerPC CPU chip that was a breakthrough in performance per watt -- for 32-bit PowerPC. Which had already lost to Intel for mainstream applications. At Apple, Centaur joined engineers who had helped to develop early ARM RISC processors. While I know that the talent pool migrates, engineers have moved…

I believe you’re thinking of PA Semi not Centaur (which designed x86 chips not PowerPC or ARM)

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#27

Post by tverbeure »

watersb wrote: post #20
tverbeure wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked at CPU architectural comparisons, but Apple must have a major benefit in owning the whole stack: from the lowest hardware level to the OS to many of the applications. And with the right focus (which they almost certainly have) the ability to optimize the system as a whole instead of each level taking care of just their own section. If the x86 translation team can make their case that a specific CPU f…

For Dell, the customer is corporate Information Technology departments and accountants. Most of their end-user kit is minimum viable brick for business use: if it isn't in the box, it can't break. I find their engineering impressive. Apple tells corporate IT to get out of the way of their customers, the users. Thus repairing their stuff is a nightmare. (My laptop is an M1 MacBook Air. My servers are off-lease salvage…

If I close my laptop, put it in a backpack, and it comes out hot like a bun out of the oven, I don't consider that a minimum viable solution.

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#28

Post by r00fus »

popcalc wrote: post #24
r00fus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but you can run Linux on the Apple m-series laptops using Asahi Linux. This is a laptop chip, right?

When you rely on volunteers blindly reverse engineering Apple hardware you're never going to reach a level of support and stability that meets mission-critical requirements. It's a hobbyist solution. "Qualcomm has been working to ensure good Linux support for the Snapdragon X Elite high-end laptop SoC. That work is still ongoing but the initial bits are already in the mainline kernel while other optimizations and oth…

It's amusing because Linux started as a hobbyist solution. I think the results will speak for themselves. Asahi Linux is quite usable with some limitations. Corporate support for Linux doesn't guarantee usability based on past efforts.

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#29

Post by kyriakos »

Based on the original reddit thread discussion benchmarks are running with the cpu peaking at 2.5ghz when x elite should be able to go up to 4ghz. Seems like there me be some firmware issue in this model. What's more interesting is that the reviewer was able to play resident evil village at 60-100fps on battery using the x64 version of the game from steam.

Re: Snapdragon X Elite in the wild is allegedly slower than iPhone 12

#30

Post by watersb »

huxley wrote: post #26
watersb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's core "Silicon" team was the Centaur Technologies chip design group. At the time, they had brought to market a PowerPC CPU chip that was a breakthrough in performance per watt -- for 32-bit PowerPC. Which had already lost to Intel for mainstream applications. At Apple, Centaur joined engineers who had helped to develop early ARM RISC processors. While I know that the talent pool migrates, engineers have moved…

I believe you’re thinking of PA Semi not Centaur (which designed x86 chips not PowerPC or ARM)

Oops. Thanks for the correction! It was PA Semi, indeed.
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