Qualcomm Brings Laptop-Class CPU Cores To Phones With Snapdragon 8 Elite (arstechnica.com) 12
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: (Score:3)
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)
Marginal gains (Score:3)
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.
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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.
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