ARMs Race | Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 vs Apple M1

Qualcomm’s development of the Snapdragon 8280, 8280XP and the potential successor to Microsoft’s SQ2, the SQ3 continues and now a benchmark has appeared on Geekbench that looks to be one of the three chips we previously reported on.

After inspecting the benchmark, a couple of details stand out. The is called Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 and the base frequency is 2.69GHz. The base frequency running at 2.69GHz is similar to our previous reporting that the Snapdragon 8280XP has four cores running at 2.7GHz. The Snapdragon 8280XP has 4 performance cores running at 2.7GHz and the other 4 power saving cores running at 2.43GHz. This benchmark is unconfirmed and could have been fabricated so let’s not put too much stock in this just yet, but it is also a realistic benchmark that has some roots in reality.

Background

The Windows platform is chip-architecture-agnostic and enables OEMs to deliver PC’s to nearly every corner the PC market. Qualcomm’s work with Microsoft began long before Windows on ARM, it goes way back to Windows Phone devices, the original ARM-powered Surface and the ARM-powered Nokia Lumia 1520.

In 2017 Qualcomm in partnership with OEM’s like ASUS, HP, Samsung and others launched the first ARM-powered PC’s using the Snapdragon 835.

Over the next few years devices continued to ship with newer chips like the Snapdragon 855 until Qualcomm launched its first dedicated; albeit a modified Snapdragon 855, the Snapdragon 8cx. We saw a number of devices from big name OEM’s launch with the first-gen Snapdragon 8cx and Microsoft’s Surface Pro X powered by the SQ1 which is a more powerful Snapdragon 8cx.

Microsoft originally launched the Windows 10 on ARM platform with 32-bit app emulation and just recently launched a 64-bit app emulation preview enabling 64-bit app emulation of creative professional apps like Affinity Photo and Designer. 64-bit app emulation makes the platform as compatible as Intel/AMD based PCs with the majority of Windows apps which is an enormous accomplishment.

That accomplishment is overshadowed however; by Apple’s macOS on Apple’s own Silicon platform that not only out performs Snapdragon-based PC’s, it also outperforms Windows 10 on ARM for running legacy apps through translation rather than emulation like on Windows 10 on ARM. It would seem that Qualcomm is now reacting to Apple’s M1 supremacy with a new chipset that could finally challenge Apple’s M1 chip in an future Surface Pro X, ARM-powered Surface Laptop 4 and other PCs from OEM’s.

Even though Qualcomm’s efforts are overshadowed by Apple’s M1that doesn’t mean that Qualcomm isn’t making great strides in performance. If we compare the list of Qualcomm-powered devices below, we can see a steady improvement from the 8cx, SQ1, SQ2 and alleged 8cx Gen3. In fact the Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 is a greater leap in performance that the leap from the SQ1 to the SQ2.

Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 vs Apple M1

If we compare the Snapdragon 8cx Gen2 versus the alleged 8cx Gen 3 the performance jump is quite impressive. It is only when we compare the 8cx Gen3 to Apple’s M1 that we come to terms that Qualcomm still has lots of work to do.

Snapdragon 8280

We recently reported on Qualcomm’s successor for the 8cx platform in the works referred to as Snapdragon 8280 in import-export databases, even though the final name for marketing is likely to be 8cx Gen 3 or something else entirely. According to a report from Winfuture.de, there are two variants being tested internally at Qualcomm. According to the report, Qualcomm is no longer focusing on combining four high-performance cores with four energy-saving cores, but instead combining two clusters of eight high-performance cores clocked at varying speeds.

While not much is currently known about the chipset, the new chipset reportedly supports up to 32GB of LPDDR4X RAM or 8GB of the faster LPDDR5 RAM which would enable OEM’s to added more than the current ceiling of 16GB to next-gen ARM PC’s. Test Systems with the SC8280 show that they have 14-inch displays, which means these are likely laptops. There is also some information on the Neural Processing Unit or NPU which is said to be capable of up to 15 TFLOPS.

Snapdragon 8280XP

One of the three chip variants being developed has four “Gold+” cores running at 2.7GHz and four “Gold” cores running at 2.43GHz. All of the other specifications are unchanged from the Snapdragon 8280 variant.

Microsoft SQ3

According to the report, there are certain samples being tested that are similar to the Snapdragon 8280XP but with the 4 performance cores cranked up to the maximum 3GHz with the other 4 lower-performance cores presumably at 2.43GHz. So why do we think this is the future SQ3? Because the past informs the future. For both the SQ1 and SQ2, the clock speeds were cranked up compared to what Qualcomm shipped and this higher clock speeds in some samples being tested aligns with Microsoft’s SQ chipsets running at higher clock speeds.

Could 2021 be the year Qualcomm takes the fight to Apple? Could Samsung Exynos chipset packing an AMD Radeon mobile GPU upset the Apple and Qualcomm duopoly? Stay tuned.