Qualcomm says its next chip designed for laptops and 2-in-1 computers is designed for long battery life, speedy performance, and always-connected capabilities.

According to Qualcomm, its new chip can power fanless PCs with more than 25 hours of battery life, while offering “up to 50% greater total system performance than the competition” according to the company’s own internal testing.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G

Qualcomm says compared to an unspecified 10th-gen Intel Core i5 processor running at 15 watts, its 7 watt Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G chip offers up to 18-percent better performance and up to 39-percent better efficiency.

Things look even better for Qualcomm when the company pits its chip against a 7 watt Intel Core i5 chip with Hybrid Cores (most likely a Lakefield processor). In that case, Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G is up to 51-percent faster and up to 58-percent more efficient.

But there are no details on what those tests entailed — recent Windows on ARM laptops and tablets generally perform well when running applications compiled for ARM architecture. There’s a performance hit when running x86 apps though, since Windows has to use emulation. And not all x86 apps will run at all.

And Qualcomm seems more interested in comparing its new chip with an Intel processor than with the first-gen Snapdragon 8cx 5G. Maybe that’s because it doesn’t actually look like all that much has changed.

The main difference seems to be that the 2nd-gen chip adds Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6800 technology which means it supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 (the previous-gen chip topped out at WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0).

Qualcomm has also updated the AI engine from Hexagon 685 to Hexagon 690, which could bring a small performance boost in some tasks.

Both the Snapdragon 8cx 5G and the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G feature:

  • 8-core Qualcomm Kryo 495 processors
  • 8-channel LPDDR4x RAM
  • Support for NVMe and UFS 3.0 storage
  • Qualcomm Adreno 680 Extreme graphics
  • Qualcomm
  • Qualcomm Spectra 390 image signal processors (support for 32MP single cameras or 16MP dual cameras)
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modems (mmWave and sub-6GHz support)
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon X24 LTE modems
  • Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ support

The company says the first devices with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G chip should ship in late 2020 and if you’re wondering what they’ll look like, Acer’s got you covered. The company’s upcoming Acer Spin 7 (SP71) is the first PC announced to feature the new chip.

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3 replies on “Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G is designed for PCs with 25+ hours of battery life”

  1. Apple is going to switch to ARM from Intel in its upcoming laptops to save costs. Whether that cost saving is passed onto customers is remain to be seen. How about the Windows PC side of things, regarding these new Qualcomm chips vs. Intel (and AMD)?

    @Some Guy: the laptops I have been buying and using and also quite a few other people have the same strategy is we buy refurbished business class laptops from a few years back. ThinkPads are a popular choice but models of a couple of years old such as my X230 had shitty battery life even when new. Or you had to buy a huge, heavy protruding battery. I’ve only made short visits to coffee shops with it so the short battery life was enough for quick tasks.

    That said, I’d love to replace it with something modern with all day battery life, something like a Microsoft Surface, or rather a Surface clone. I don’t want to support Microsoft in their policy of gluing in batteries even in their newer, said to be more repairable machines.

    Even if it’s home office season as laptops become boring commodity products though you could reasonably expect manufacturers come up with myriads of compelling options at this time as you can see it’s not trivial to buy something cool and interesting while also functional. So if I see a fellow with a similar, older laptop in a coffee shop (I haven’t been in one since the pandemic) I’m sympathetic to her as she probably goes through the same struggles as me regarding switching to something next generation vs. staying old school. I would add that Chromebooks aren’t a thing outside the US.

  2. Alright, under my conventions, 25 hours is way too much and indicates misplaced priorities.
    So it begs the question: Is it considered freakish and weird to use a laptop while the laptop is plugged in? Particularly among younger demographics.
    Like, if you walked by someone using a laptop plugged in, would you think less of him? Like he was inferior in some way to the otherwise identical man with the unplugged laptop next to him? Even if you wouldn’t want to admit to anyone that you’d had the notion, would you still think it?

    1. These devices will be used as tablets at least part of the time. Using a tablet when plugged in sux. Traveling and not constantly having to look for a power outlet is awesome. The switch in less portable devices being used as desktops will be harder to justify but the power savings in servers means that the os needs to support it.

      My first pc used CPM as an OS when I was a child and the term PC had not been coined yet…….so I am not young.

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