The latest specifications of the upcoming Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 from Qualcomm are extremely promising and if the SoC performs as an Apple M-series SoC competitor, we will have real competition in the market. Here are some more details we know you’ll be interested in reading.
The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will also enable Windows-based laptops to get cellular connectivity thanks to Qualcomm’s 5G modem, along with external GPU support.
Earlier we reported that Qualcomm is working on it An unnamed SoC codenamed ‘Hamoa’. It turns out that @Za_Raczke, who previously talked about a 12-core SoC, now says that the silicon will be called Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4. Apparently, Qualcomm is working on multiple chipsets, but what is said to deliver the most performance is apparently eight performance cores and four power efficiency cores.
However, it does not say whether the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will be introduced or not Qualcomm’s Orion cores, are specific solutions made possible by the company’s acquisition of Nuvia. Regardless, the information he shared sounds interesting on paper, with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4’s performance cores clocked at 3.40GHz, while the power-saving cores are clocked at 2.50GHz. It is not confirmed that these clock speeds will remain the same when running on silicon commercial products, but we will find out in the future.
As for the system cache, the tipster says that each block of 4 cores has 12MB of shared L2 cache, 8MB of L3 cache. Surprisingly, Qualcomm is not developing a new GPU for the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4, as it is said to be powered by the Adreno 740, the same GPU. Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Although it still has a powerful GPU, the limitations can start to show when running on Windows laptops instead of smartphones.
Leak: Update on Qualcomm’s Apple M competitor – 8cx Gen 4, codenamed Hamoa 🧵 pic.twitter.com/1tptCk8ghf
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) January 20, 2023
While the M2 Pro and M2 Max are limited to LPDDR5 RAM, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 can support up to 64GB of LPDDR5X, allowing this memory to run at a lower frequency of 4.20GHz and prioritizing battery life when needed. Wi-Fi 7 and an external Snapdragon X65 5G modem are said to be included, along with discrete GPU support for more than 8 lanes of PCIe 4.0.
There are also 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0 for NVMe drives (can be configured as 2 x 2), a dedicated PCIe 3.0 lane for a Wi-Fi card and a modem. If manufacturers want to use UFS 4.0 onboard memory instead of PCIe, Qualcomm also provides that option with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 via a dedicated memory controller. It seems that the chipset maker is sprinting the extra mile, as users will also be able to connect high-resolution monitors like how they can do on the latest 2023 MacBook Pro models.
Not only that, video encoding and decoding performance is also said to be greatly improved. We encourage our readers to check out @Za_Raczke’s tweet for more information on what to expect from the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4. In short, we’re excited to see what this chipset is capable of. The information shared today is that this should be the Apple M-series competitor we’ve all been asking for.
News source: @Za_Raczke
