Qualcomm Brings Laptop-Class CPU Cores To Phones With Snapdragon 8 Elite (arstechnica.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Qualcomm has a new chip for flagship phones, and the best part is that it uses an improved version of the Oryon CPU architecture that the Snapdragon X Elite chips brought to Windows PCs earlier this year. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is the follow-up to last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 -- yet another change to the naming convention that Qualcomm uses for its high-end phone chips, though, as usual, the number 8 is still involved. The 8 Elite uses a "brand-new, 2nd-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU" with clock speeds up to 4.32 GHz, which Qualcomm says will improve performance by about 45 percent compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Rather than a mix of large, medium, and small CPU cores as it has used in the past, the 8 Elite has two "Prime" cores for hitting that high peak clock speed, while the other six are all "Performance" cores that peak at a lower 3.53 GHz. But it doesn't look like Qualcomm is using a mix of different CPU architectures anymore, choosing to distinguish the higher-performing core from the lower-performing ones by clock speed alone. Qualcomm promises a similar 40 percent performance boost from the new Adreno 830 GPU. The chip also includes a marginally improved Snapdragon X80 5G modem, up from an X75 modem in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 -- its main improvement appears to be support for additional antennas, for a total of six, but the download speed still tops out at a theoretical 10Gbps. Wi-Fi 7 support appears to be the same as in the 8 Gen 3, but the 8 Elite does support the Bluetooth 6.0 standard, up from Bluetooth 5.4 in the 8 Gen 3.
Qualcomm says the new chip's CPU features "44% improved power efficiency" and "40% greater power efficiency" for the GPU, which ought to keep power usage in line despite the performance improvements -- these gains are probably attributable to the new 3 nm TSMC manufacturing process, compared to the 4 nm process used for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. And no 2024 chip announcement would be complete without some kind of AI mention: Qualcomm's image signal processor is now an "AI ISP," which Qualcomm says "recognizes and enhances virtually anything in the frame, including faces, hair, clothing, objects, backgrounds, and beyond." These capabilities can allow it to remove objects from the background of photos, among other things, using the on-device processing power of the chip's Hexagon neural processing unit (NPU). The NPU is 45 percent faster than the one in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Phones using the Snapdragon 8 Elite should begin appearing in "the coming weeks."
Rather than a mix of large, medium, and small CPU cores as it has used in the past, the 8 Elite has two "Prime" cores for hitting that high peak clock speed, while the other six are all "Performance" cores that peak at a lower 3.53 GHz. But it doesn't look like Qualcomm is using a mix of different CPU architectures anymore, choosing to distinguish the higher-performing core from the lower-performing ones by clock speed alone. Qualcomm promises a similar 40 percent performance boost from the new Adreno 830 GPU. The chip also includes a marginally improved Snapdragon X80 5G modem, up from an X75 modem in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 -- its main improvement appears to be support for additional antennas, for a total of six, but the download speed still tops out at a theoretical 10Gbps. Wi-Fi 7 support appears to be the same as in the 8 Gen 3, but the 8 Elite does support the Bluetooth 6.0 standard, up from Bluetooth 5.4 in the 8 Gen 3.
Qualcomm says the new chip's CPU features "44% improved power efficiency" and "40% greater power efficiency" for the GPU, which ought to keep power usage in line despite the performance improvements -- these gains are probably attributable to the new 3 nm TSMC manufacturing process, compared to the 4 nm process used for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. And no 2024 chip announcement would be complete without some kind of AI mention: Qualcomm's image signal processor is now an "AI ISP," which Qualcomm says "recognizes and enhances virtually anything in the frame, including faces, hair, clothing, objects, backgrounds, and beyond." These capabilities can allow it to remove objects from the background of photos, among other things, using the on-device processing power of the chip's Hexagon neural processing unit (NPU). The NPU is 45 percent faster than the one in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Phones using the Snapdragon 8 Elite should begin appearing in "the coming weeks."
Prime vs Performance (Score:2)
Prime = Faster?
Performace = Slower?
Ugh, do words not matter any more?
Re: (Score:2)
So if your Qualcomm: Prime = Faster? Performace = Slower? Ugh, do words not matter any more?
Doesn't seem like it. I think, once marketing departments started redefining words to mean whatever whenever and people started throwing fits about words they didn't particularly care for? We've been on slippery slope toward non-communication throughout the species. Add in our political class, from way back, just randomly spewing things into the void, then redefining the words when called on the nonsense they said, "That depends on what the word 'is' is." Well? It's only natural that we would reach the poin
Re:Prime vs Performance (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they're adopting the labels for grades of beef?
I'm holding out for the "Choice" cores with more even marbling.
Re: (Score:2)
Words do matter. But marketeers do not care what they corrupt and many customers do not understand what they buy.
so what? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So what is the big deal? The P-cores in Apple M chips are the same as in the A chips (the number of cores and the E-core/P-core mix varies). You iPhone had laptop-class cores all along.
Or your Apple Pro's now have iPhone chips *evil grin*
Marginal gains (Score:4, Insightful)
In the real world, does anyone find their current phone too slow?
I mean, yeah, you wait for the network, but a faster CPU won't fix that. Other than *maybe* some games, I don't think much is CPU bound.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally? No. Probably overpowered significantly.
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. I'm hard-pressed to find anything that qualifies my current (Samsung S22 Ultra) phone for an upgrade.
Maybe if I were to use it as a desktop device (Samsung DeX), but I tried the feature and found it clunky.
You'll probably laugh, but the main impediment wasn't performance. It was the fact that my DeX cradle couldn't use my phone unless I removed the phone protector. The USB-C connector from the DeX wouldn't make proper contact otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
Mostly I need more RAM, and that mostly because mobile Firefox leaks memory like a mad bastard. I have oodles of CPU for phone purposes, and I have a pretty cheap Moto phone. I have 4GB of RAM too, but Firefox can dick that up quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
Very true, however I'd really like to see the day where I can dock my mobile via Thunderbolt or something like I do my laptop, and have it be my workstation. One less thing.
Re: (Score:2)
There's Samsung Dex, which apparently works quite well for a lot of common computing tasks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
AMD actually had that as a focus for the Zen5(Ryzen 9000) generation of Ryzen desktop chips, but there was a backlash because a 5% performance increase wasn't enough for those who only want performance no matter how much power is required.
Re: (Score:2)
From TFS: "Qualcomm says the new chip's CPU features "44% improved power efficiency" and "40% greater power efficiency" for the GPU"
TBH, I'm not sure how they're doing a ~40% improvement across the board. That's quite a big step up over last years model. Meanwhile, CPU's are doing smaller improvements, like 5%, or releasing at the same effective performance with lower power. I'm sure there's more to it, but it sounds pretty good.
Re: (Score:2)
In the real world, does anyone find their current phone too slow?
You mean beyond the people wanting to make shittier and shittier software for it?
Phone makers and their suppliers of course, they want to go back to the halcyon days where people needed a new phone every year instead of hanging onto a £300 phone for 2-3 years.
Re: (Score:2)
In the real world, does anyone find their current phone too slow?
I mean, yeah, you wait for the network, but a faster CPU won't fix that. Other than *maybe* some games, I don't think much is CPU bound.
Until your phone actually needs more the 4 gigs of ram, then frankly, a multicore 32 bit chipset would give you the same results. It's a phone. You're making calls, texts, and streaming some YouTube videos, not hosting a VM farm. A lot of this stuff is just marketing hype to keep selling phones. Most people's phones have done what they want for 10 years now, and many people are only "upgrading" because they have to. We know what a smartphone is now. All the "innovations" are basically just flash in hopes th
Re: (Score:2)
In the real world, does anyone find their current phone too slow?
Yes, I do. Phones are very much following the ol' saying "What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away." With every update they get slower, laggier, less responsive. Then you buy a new one and it's super fast ... for a time, until Android version 22 or iOS XXVI comes out and makes your life hell again.
Unlike PCs where performance downgrades with system changes appear to have stagnated (even Microsoft can't write code inefficient enough to bog down a nice modern 8 core CPU with loads of memory bandwidth), phones
Re: (Score:2)
In the real world, does anyone find their current phone too slow?
I mean, yeah, you wait for the network, but a faster CPU won't fix that. Other than *maybe* some games, I don't think much is CPU bound.
I often have to wait for the interface, so yes, my phone is too slow, however I doubt the problem is CPU speed.
Are they waterproof? (Score:2)
If they were, this would help with cooling.
Qualcomm has a ways to go... (Score:2)
Qualcomm has a ways to go with their offerings. For example, they need to get at least to parity with Apple Silicon, if not leapfrog it into Xeon or EPYC territory so ARM can be in the server room at reasonable speeds.
Qualcomm also needs to go with a UEFI standard. Right now, ARM Windows machines are all over the place, and ARM SoCs are not even there yet, being usually binary blobs for Linux. It needs to go with a boot standard and stuff that the Linux kernel can use without getting tainted.
Bonus points
Re: Qualcomm has a ways to go... (Score:1)
I don't think redundancy is a big selling point on most mobile devices. Also just the overhead needed for raid would have people up in arms. Your 128gb device is now 64gb if you do mirroring or ~80gb if you do stripping. The only odd use case scenario I can think of would be to offer dual micro sd slots and have a mirrorer array there that could be use as a secured local storage for sensitive data but now you are add
Given that they have failed on latops.. (Score:2)
.. to bring laptop quality chips, why would we believe they would succeed to do that in phones?
Re: (Score:1)
.. to bring laptop quality chips, why would we believe they would succeed to do that in phones?
They've failed on Desktop [theverge.com]... but I think the laptops are just underperforming. Qualcomm still has the best non-Apple phone-centric processors out there.