Qualcomm revealed X Elite's benchmark scores

[eltoslightfoot]

yes, because that article is not written by an objective editor/editors
Dont get your high hopes on this SD x elite....on paper is around M1 Pro (on gpu level) and around M2 on cpu in the end product
M2 Macbook Air will be far ahead of an actual fan-less 13" Laptop with SD x elite. M3 family is not in question. The SoC seems allright for an low mid tier laptops but because windows emulation/translation layer and developers that are not quite ready even after 6 years....these will not perform as well as you all expect

Bottom line, dont buy this until you tested yourself, or buy from a market that has good return policy

I don’t think you understand where this architecture is already at. Everything you said is where we are right now. Snapdragon is far, far ahead of that. So we will see. And talk of GPUs is almost pointless. If a windows user needs a powerful GPU, they have it without getting Snapdragon involved now. So, again, this is a promising development.

As for testing it, I already have and literally everything worked I used. I wasn’t gaming on it, it was for everything else. Onenote, Scrivener, Obsidian, Office, Kindle, Affinity Photo, VS Code, etc. It all worked fine.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I had all of that with my first Surface Pro X (charts and numbers were looking fine at the event but..)....not anymore...until developers and MS are full in on this, sorry but this kind of hybrid of OS, SoC and software app developers will always be far too faulty IMO especially for pro users

Which version did you have? It’s come a long way already in the last six months. I had a Robo and Kala device, and everything worked great! But the translation layer was new and after the time of he gen 1. So I can see why you might have had trouble.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

As for testing it, I already have and literally everything worked I used. I wasn’t gaming on it, it was for everything else. Onenote, Scrivener, Obsidian, Office, Kindle, Affinity Photo, VS Code, etc. It all worked fine.

Nice, thanks for reporting your findings!

I still think it will be a chicken and egg thing with Windows on ARM. The customers will not go Win ARM over Win Intel/AMD before there is a strong incentive and broad native software support. And the Software companies will not port before there is a large customer base on Win ARM.

Remember that it was a very different scenario for Apple as software vendors was mere or less forced to compile for ARM if they wanted to stay relevant long term on macOS. And many already knew the Apple ARM ecosystem from iOS.

We will see, I’m sure the Win ARM will crave out a decent customer base but Windows OS on Arm have been out for a long time with not much showing and I’m not sure a good SoC like this will suddenly change that.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Nice, thanks for reporting your findings!

I still think it will be a chicken and egg thing with Windows on ARM. The customers will not go Win ARM over Win Intel/AMD before there is a strong incentive and broad native software support. And the Software companies will not port before there is a large customer base on Win ARM.

Remember that it was a very different scenario for Apple as software vendors was mere or less forced to compile for ARM if they wanted to stay relevant long term on macOS. And many already knew the Apple ARM ecosystem from iOS.

We will see, I’m sure the Win ARM will crave out a decent customer base but Windows OS on Arm have been out for a long time with not much showing and I’m not sure a good SoC like this will suddenly change that.

And it could be...the good news is that the user base for windows is so large that even if a small percentage of users try it, that will be enough. And the reality is the thin-and-light category for windows could use an infusion of long battery life, fanless, and still decently powerful. If it can do that, I have a feeling within a year, tons of corporate laptops will go with this for executive and management. Not to mention all the users that just use it for email, office, and browsing the web (like my parents).

It will be interesting. Every tech shift is a little bit of the chicken-and-the-egg situation when you think about it. Even Apple mentioned how much faster the M3 is compared to.....intel Macs. So clearly they see a large section of their install base that hasn't even switched.

 

[Homy]

It'll be interesting to update this chart when M3 chips come out so we can compare them.

Here are some new benchmarks. M3 Max at about 50W is 38% faster (1692) than SD Elite X at 80W (1229).

An interesting gaming test in Badur's Gate 3 which is native for AS. People keep saying M2 Ultra isn't better than RTX 4060 in games. Here we see a different story.

At 2160p highest quality M3 Max performs as 4070 laptop, M2 Ultra even faster.

At 1440p max quality M3 Max performs as 4080 gaming laptop.

At 1080p max quality when the game is CPU bound M3 Max performs as desktop RTX 4090.

 

[J.A.K.]

This is the real reason the M3 was rushed out.

 

[NT1440]

This is the real reason the M3 was rushed out.

You can’t “rush out” an EUV process that takes over a year to tool up before you even start test production…

 

[ggCloud]

This is the real reason the M3 was rushed out.

Lol it wasn't rushed. You don't tape out within a week

 

[leman]

This is the real reason the M3 was rushed out.

Why do you people keep falling for this cheap crap? Qualcomm didn’t outpace Apple. A bunch of ex-Apple engineers - among them the former chief of Apple CPU design team - have launched a startup that has rebuilt Apple A14 cores from scratch on N4 and running higher clocks. Qualcomm has bought the company. That’s it.

Apple hasn’t been outpaced, there are still a generation ahead. Yes, they have good competition now, only if the competition is their own former team. M3 has not been rushed out. It’s a product of multiple year of development and the launch has been planed long advance. November is the traditional time for Apple to launch new laptops.

 

[leman]

Also, regarding Qualcomm chip… it’s going to be comparable to M3 Pro in multi core (while being slightly slower in single core), and the GPU is bad. Qualcomm will likely position them at around $2000 to compete against ultra compact business/creative laptops running Windows. By the time it launches there will be new x86 chips on the horizon which will again likely make its advantages less obvious.

 

[MayaUser]

Not a chance, you all have high hopes. But when actual devices will come under windows you will start to wo der where all of these scores went

 

[MayaUser]

Which version did you have? It’s come a long way already in the last six months. I had a Robo and Kala device, and everything worked great! But the translation layer was new and after the time of he gen 1. So I can see why you might have had trouble.

Nope. The soc is more powerful like always should be , but the windows emulation and apps arm based are still the same…for now. Maybe until summer will change but these hopes some of us we already have so many times in the past

 

[MayaUser]

I don’t think you understand where this architecture is already at. Everything you said is where we are right now. Snapdragon is far, far ahead of that. So we will see. And talk of GPUs is almost pointless. If a windows user needs a powerful GPU, they have it without getting Snapdragon involved now. So, again, this is a promising development.

As for testing it, I already have and literally everything worked I used. I wasn’t gaming on it, it was for everything else. Onenote, Scrivener, Obsidian, Office, Kindle, Affinity Photo, VS Code, etc. It all worked fine.

This promising development we heard it before..
Again i hope this is a fresh start for arm windows
It is strange to see that you were fine with affinity photos on arm based laptops..it seems you dont need or expect too much as i do. Again, Maya on m2 max and ultra works very well..on m3 max ultra even better because its supports ray tracing. Those upcoming qulcomm will be, for sure 50% slower than my m2 max in projects and my work flows. This will not be an issues if these devices will come in the $700-$1499 base starting price segment.

 

[MayaUser]

This topic should be kept at least until first consumer device will come up

 

[thenewperson]

This is the real reason the M3 was rushed out.

Damn, video is private now 🤔

 

[Xiao_Xi]

it wasn't rushed. You don't tape out within a week

Apple's latest event was anything but usual. The event was shorter than others, invitations were sent out fewer days in advance than at other events, and it was scheduled days before a later than usual earnings call.

 

[ggCloud]

Apple's latest event was anything but usual. The event was shorter than others, invitations were sent out fewer days in advance than at other events, and it was scheduled days before a later than usual earnings call.

True but the Mac events are quick. Happened in 2020 and 2021. Invites got sent out 7 days before

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Invites got sent out 7 days before

6 and a half days. They were shipped on Tuesday morning for an event on Monday evening. The time was also unusual.

Apple Announces October Event for Macs: 'Scary Fast'

Apple today announced its second fall event of 2023, with the online event set to be held on Monday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time....

www.macrumors.com

In contrast, the iPhone event was announced two weeks earlier.

Apple Announces 'Wonderlust' Event Expected to Feature iPhone 15, Apple Watch Series 9 and More

Apple today announced plans to hold a special event on Tuesday, September 12 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Like last year, the event will take place at...

www.macrumors.com

 

[eltoslightfoot]

This promising development we heard it before..
Again i hope this is a fresh start for arm windows
It is strange to see that you were fine with affinity photos on arm based laptops..it seems you dont need or expect too much as i do. Again, Maya on m2 max and ultra works very well..on m3 max ultra even better because its supports ray tracing. Those upcoming qulcomm will be, for sure 50% slower than my m2 max in projects and my work flows. This will not be an issues if these devices will come in the $700-$1499 base starting price segment.

Look if you are using Maya in the Windows world, you don't need to wait for Snapdragon Elite. It isn't possibly, in any way shape or form, going to ever measure up to what is possible with a high end intel or AMD processor and a discrete video card.

Again, they should be 50% slower than a Max processor. That isn't their target market. Which you say towards the end there, so we agree.

 

[MRMSFC]

I really don’t see why Qualcomm has to beat Apple in the ARM space to make a splash.

People are getting an M2 Pro competitor in the Windows space where previously they were limited to x86 processors that used considerably more power. Isn’t that a cause for celebration all on its own?

If this works out well for Qualcomm, even if they’re a generation behind Apple, then it means a software environment less dependent on a duopoly of companies (and a singular processor architecture).

Hell, this could even trickle down into ARM compatible software running natively on Apple Silicon, even if it doesn’t use any Aarch64 extensions.

 

[Gudi]

Maybe Apple Silicon is in a danger?

Here on MacRumors we say: "Apple is doomed!" 😳

... whenever another chipmaker releases benchmarks of its upcoming processors.

 

[NT1440]

Apple's latest event was anything but usual. The event was shorter than others, invitations were sent out fewer days in advance than at other events, and it was scheduled days before a later than usual earnings call.

Cool, it took $1 billion just for taping out the M3 line.

There is no physical way to “rush” fab processes. It takes at least 6 months to tape out, let alone begin QC testing for production ramp up.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I really don’t see why Qualcomm has to beat Apple in the ARM space to make a splash.

People are getting an M2 Pro competitor in the Windows space where previously they were limited to x86 processors that used considerably more power. Isn’t that a cause for celebration all on its own?

If this works out well for Qualcomm, even if they’re a generation behind Apple, then it means a software environment less dependent on a duopoly of companies (and a singular processor architecture).

Hell, this could even trickle down into ARM compatible software running natively on Apple Silicon, even if it doesn’t use any Aarch64 extensions.

Exactly, we all win here. More competition is good!

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Here on MacRumors we say: "Apple is doomed!" 😳

... whenever another chipmaker releases benchmarks of its upcoming processors.

Don't worry, Windows sites are the same way with Apple and Google.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

TechTechPotato interviewed Gerard Williams and titled the video "Scary Faster". I wonder who came up with that title.