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Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

(www.qualcomm.com)
163 points wmf | 5 comments | 24 Sep 25 22:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.731s | source
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jasoneckert ◴[24 Sep 25 22:44 UTC] No.45366812[source]▶
As someone who has used the Snapdragon X Elite (12 core Oryon) Dev Kit as a daily driver for the past year, I find this exciting. The X Elite performance still blows my mind today - so the new X2 Elite with 18 cores is likely going to be even more impressive from a performance perspective!

I can't speak to the battery life, however, since it is dismal on my Dev Kit ;-)

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typpilol ◴[24 Sep 25 22:50 UTC] No.45366858[source]▶
How's the compatibility? Are there any apps that don't work that are critical?
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jasoneckert ◴[24 Sep 25 22:55 UTC] No.45366894[source]▶
Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No."

The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!

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1. tobias3 ◴[25 Sep 25 00:13 UTC] No.45367612{3}[source]▶
For me it is too slow to run Age of Empires 2: DE multiplayer. More than ten year old Laptops with Intel chips are faster there.
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2. nulld3v ◴[25 Sep 25 00:34 UTC] No.45367782[source]▶
I suspect that's due to the GPU and not due to Prism, because they basically just took a mobile GPU and stuffed it into a laptop chip. Generally performance seems to be on par with whatever a typical flagship Android devices can do.

Desktop games that have mobile ports generally seem to run well, emulation is pretty solid too (e.g. Dolphin). Warcraft III runs OK-ish.

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3. zamadatix ◴[25 Sep 25 01:13 UTC] No.45368131[source]▶
The GPUs don't go toe-to-toe with current gen desktop GPUs but they should be significantly better than the GTX 650, a mid range desktop GPU from 2012, the game (2019) lists as recommended. It does sound like something odd is going on than just lack of hardware.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+...

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+6...

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4. TiredOfLife ◴[25 Sep 25 05:22 UTC] No.45369547{3}[source]▶
That something odd is called GPU drivers. Even Intel struggled (they recently announced that they are dropping all gpu driver older than Alchemist development) to get games running on their iGpus
5. nulld3v ◴[25 Sep 25 07:51 UTC] No.45370297{3}[source]▶
There are also some architectural differences between mobile & desktop GPUs which may impact games that are not optimized for the platform: https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-snapdragon-x-elites-adreno-...