Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 Could Prove Disappointing
The development of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 processor proved to be quite a challenge
Qulacomm's own version of the Arm cores developed under the name Oryon within the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 chipset were announced as early as 2022 and are positioned as the first and only real competitor to the Apple M-series of processors. Unfortunately, the development of processor cores turned out to be a much more difficult task than originally expected. Easier said than done and although this manufacturer dominates the 5G chipset market, it is rumored to be running into some pretty big problems in this area, which could potentially delay the launch of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 chipset.
Previously, Qualcomm announced that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 SoC will be available to partners in three different configurations, the most powerful of which has a 12-core CPU with eight high-performance cores and four power-saving cores. According to Revegnus, Qualcomm is not on good terms with what we would describe as the development side of this important and much-hyped project, although the published message did not specify details. However, it wouldn't be a surprise if the San Diego-based firm encountered serious problems when designing the internal processor cores.
By the way, Qualcomm is not the only manufacturer stuck in the development of the processor as a central part of the platform and solutions for personal computers, the next part of the market in which the traditional manufacturers of mobile phone solutions want to try.
Namely, previously Samsung tried to surpass its rivals with the Mongoose processor, and after several attempts to stick firmly to the Arm design during development, this attempt repeatedly failed. On the other hand, Google reportedly postponed its own solution of a similar processor for a whole year, while other smartphone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and OPPO completely gave up and stopped the development of this type of processor. The fact is that at the moment only Apple is making generational progress with its custom SoC solutions.
The first engineering prototype sample of the 12-core Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 chipset suffered from single-core and multi-core performance issues in the Geekbench 5 test. It's been a pretty unpleasant surprise and a painful sobering up for the company, and based on the latest rumors, Qualcomm doesn't seem to have made much progress on that front.
There were earlier speculations that the launch of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 could be accelerated after Apple unveils the M3 SoC. If we assume that Qualcomm will stick to the planned time frame of the launch of the new processor, it will end up seriously behind the performance of the Apple M1 and M2 SoC solutions.
Qualcomm
Instead of imposing itself as an equally powerful processor, Qualcomm will have to play on the strategy of catching up with the main competitor's performance, while at the same time being inferior to even faster and more energy efficient Apple silicon in the form of the new M3 processor. Let's hope that Qualcomm will be able to solve the accumulated problems before the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 ends up as a complete disappointment, reports wccftech.
It turned out in the end, as confirmed by the experience of many big names in the field of mobile phone technology, that the laptop market is a much tougher nut to crack and a bigger bite than originally expected. Although it seems like a sweet bite and an irresistible bait, the situation in which Arm processors will bite off the lion's share of what Intel and AMD have been holding and developing for decades turned out to be an incomparably more difficult challenge on which many “broke” their teeth. What do you think about whether Qualcomm will eventually succeed and join Apple in the race to dominate the notebook PC market?
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