The latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 specifications are extremely promising, and if the SoC performs as well as a true Apple M-series SoC competitor, we will have some real competition in the market. Here are some additional details that we believe you will find interesting.
We previously learned that Qualcomm was developing an unnamed SoC codenamed ‘Hamoa.’ According to @Za_Raczke, who previously spoke about the 12-core SoC, the silicon’s name will be Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4. Qualcomm appears to be working on multiple chipsets, but the one that is said to deliver the most performance boasts eight performance cores and four power-efficiency cores.
Whether the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will include Qualcomm’s Oryon cores, which are custom solutions made possible by the company’s acquisition of Nuvia, is still unknown.
Regardless, the information he shares sounds intriguing on paper, with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4’s performance cores tested at 3.40GHz and the energy-efficient ones at 2.50GHz. It is unknown whether these clock speeds will remain constant when the silicon is used in commercial products, but we will find out soon.
We also learned that each block of four cores has 12MB of shared L2 cache and 8MB of L3 cache. Surprisingly, Qualcomm isn’t working on a new GPU for the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 because it’s expected to use the Adreno 740, the same graphics processor found in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. While it is still a powerful GPU, the limitations may become apparent when used in Windows notebooks rather than smartphones.
Leak: update on Qualcomm's Apple M rival – 8cx Gen 4, codename Hamoa 🧵 pic.twitter.com/1tptCk8ghf
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) January 20, 2023
Whereas the M2 Pro and M2 Max are limited to LPDDR5 RAM, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 could support LPDDR5X memory up to 64GB, with the option to run that memory at a lower frequency of 4.20GHz, presumably to prioritise battery life when necessary. Wi-Fi 7 and an external Snapdragon X65 5G modem are said to be included, as well as discrete GPU support across 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes.
There are also four PCIe 4.0 lanes (configurable as two by two) for NVMe drives, with PCIe 3.0 lanes reserved for the Wi-Fi card and modem. If OEMs prefer to use UFS 4.0 onboard memory instead of PCIe, Qualcomm offers that option with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 via a dedicated storage controller. It appears that the chipset manufacturer is going above and beyond because users will be able to connect high-resolution monitors, just like they can on the latest 2023 MacBook Pro models.
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