Qualcomm needs to close the performance gap that separates it from Apple if it wants to be relevant in PCs, as well as the other dominant architects, Intel and AMD. Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 is one of the developments in which it works and shows ways, although other competitors also continue to improve and we will have to wait and see.

Commenting that this SoC, in addition to the performance and connectivity improvements we’ll see below, will be the first to be designed by Nuvia, a startup it bought years ago and which we’re highlighting because It was created by former Apple employees. who worked on the Cupertino firm’s chipsets. It goes without saying that it’s the best mirror to look at when we talk about taking advantage of ARM on PCs.

Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4, the main news

According to the first leaks that reach us about this chip, it is being developed under the code name “Hamoa” and will have a so-called The most powerful CPU ever created by Qualcommwith 12 cores, 8 high-performance with frequencies up to 3.4 GHz and 4 effective up to 2.5 GHz.

The amount of cache is also important. Each quad-core die has 12MB of shared L2 cache and 8MB of L3 cache, plus 12MB of system-level cache and 4MB for graphics. The graphics system will be based on the Adreno 740 GPU with 12 cores. It will support the main development libraries, DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL and DirectML. Plus a chip you can work with dedicated graphics thanks to 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes.

It will last until 64 GB LPDDR5x memory 8 channels, more than enough for the type of notebook where Qualcomm is primarily focusing on its use. It will also support PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage for mounting SSDs and UFS 4.0 should integrators opt for eMMC.

The connectivity it will also be especially strengthened by support for the new Wi-Fi 7 standard. It will be able to install up to three Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB 3.1 ports with support for 10 Gbps speeds. The main specifications would be complemented by a Qualcomm Hexagon Tensor processor for AI functions.

According to the leaker, the chip can decode up to 4K/120fps video and encode 4K/60fps video. It will be able to power up to three displays, including one 5K and two 4K displays, and will support Windows and Chrome OS. Good progress over current, but that being said, other manufacturers are moving on as well. Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 should be available in 2024.