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First Reviews are Live and Snapdragon X Elite Doesn't Quite Deliver on Promised Performance
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DukenukemX
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Just Josh did a much better review. Mostly his use case, as a lot of stuff just doesn't work on these laptops. He even tried getting Linux working, which also didn't work. He gives Dawid Does Tech Stuff credit for his take on gaming on these, and points out Linus Tech Tips who is over hyping these laptops.
View: https://youtu.be/elpeaSO0MtY?si=e-nUFi-g1M30rqHo
View: https://youtu.be/elpeaSO0MtY?si=e-nUFi-g1M30rqHo
That an excellent review and incredible high praise (recommended over a macbook air to save $100 to some) considering, the early state of affair.
I tried downloading a particular streaming service application, the install failed with some cryptic error. I tried installing print/scanner drivers, the install failed with an INF file error. I downloaded MS drivers for the printer, which worked - But there were no drivers available for the scanner.
I can see it now: MS release ARM based devices, the devices cost a fortune, the experiment inevitably fails as consumers don't want a device that isn't compatible with all Windows software/drivers, people end up abandoned with an expensive door stop.
DukenukemX
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Here's a very extensive battery test. It doesn't have any AMD chips involved but a lot of Macbooks. Some Macbooks that have no business being there, like old Intel ones that clearly have a bad battery but he does mention it in the video. The Snapdragon chips are ahead of Intel's 155h but not that much ahead. The 165h is half as efficient as the X Elites. The Macbook Air's are the best at power efficiency but not a big surprise since these devices thermal throttle hard. The Macbook Air's are nearly twice as efficient as the X Elites.
View: https://youtu.be/u1XJAOf_W5w?si=s20sddtSgewlAeHR
View: https://youtu.be/u1XJAOf_W5w?si=s20sddtSgewlAeHR
You're not necessarily completely locked down. Both new Surfaces have a user-accessible SSD slot that lets you upgrade the storage after the fact. RAM obviously isn't upgradable, but in these SoC-based ARM computers that's part of why they perform so well in certain areas.
Strong battery life and unplugged performance matter for some people. For example, I've been on a few business trips lately. I would've loved to have had the Surface Laptop then, because I could have worked on site, on the aircraft, and at the airport gates without hunting for wall outlets or worrying that the system will bog down.
Now, if you spend most of your time at a desk, plugging in is absolutely fine; for some, a laptop is just a desktop they can take with them. It's just good to have options.
It would be nice--granted, probably difficult to engineer--to be able to have the choice in a given system, maybe sort of like how some modern GPUs and PSUs have a zero-rpm fan mode for when they're not doing much.
What I get from this is that the imminent demise of x86 by ARM has been exaggerated. At best, it will allow other companies to make competitive products, but with all of the existing x86 software, we may be in a Windows vs Linux situation for many years/decades to come.
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DukenukemX
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What people also don't understand is that this ARM revolution isn't competition. Who can make ARM chips for MacOS? It's only Apple. Qualcomm has an exclusivity deal with Microsoft so that nobody else can make ARM chips for Windows. It's suppose to end later this year, but who's to say the deal won't be renewed?
Even it if was only Qualcomm, that already a competition (and if it is only Qualcomm there not a high change that it become a revolution), as for the deal, Dell kind of spilled the beans that they will have Dell Nvidia (MediaTek) arm pc in 2025, Qualcomm CEO said that the rumors that the 2016 would end in 2024 was well-documented
And with the energy behind arm cpu, why would Microsoft do such an exclusive deal in 2024 ? You do that deal when you must because no one want to do an arm cpu for you, as a promise of reward and margin if it work in exchange for all that risky spending that is needed. And obviously PC... does not need to ship with an Microsoft OS, giant amount of PC like device are both low-power, not ship with windows.
DukenukemX
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So far it's only on Qualcomm and it's bad. It's so bad that Qualcomm had to pay influencers to make it sound positive. If Nvidia made a Windows ARM chip, you'd bet it'll work. Windows/ARM is not the same as Windows/x86, as it's a whole new platform. Just cause it's Windows doesn't mean it's competition for AMD/Intel.
Why is Nvidia working with MediaTek? Pretty sure Nvidia can make their own ARM chip. Is this the leak you're talking about?
I'd imagine because Qualcomm wouldn't spend $1.4 Billion on Nuvia if they had to fight MediaTek and Nvidia? These new Snapdragon X chips are just not going to sell enough for Qualcomm to recoup, and if they have real competition from others then you'd bet Qualcomm would want another exclusivity deal. Nobody in their right mind is going to buy these new Snapdragon X laptops as they're too unrefined. Even Apple has had trouble selling their Macbooks in 2023, and Apple is better at running Windows applications than these new Qualcomm Windows laptops.
That mostly the whole point, have the dell, hp, lenovo armed of something to get better deals from intel-amd (there rumors of them slashing price).
Dell hinting fuzzily about it in an interview with Huang, https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...chips-for-windows-ai-pcs-as-soon-as-next-year and rumors https://www.reuters.com/technology/...ps-major-new-challenge-intel-2023-10-23/?s=31
Nvidia arm car chips are Mediatek, tegra use arm cortex-9, use Arm Neoverse-V2 cores for their grace hopper cpus, I am not sure if they ever made a cpu all by themselves.
That a bit harsh, the cpu in there seem perfectly fine and many people that bought their device made them sound positive:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypla7xBzNKE
Look at 11:11 just how of a different world they are from what intel currently offer (best test I have seen yet, 100% of laptop doing real life usual stuff people do unplugged i.e. type of laptop usage people do in a long WFH at the cafe or park session), using a scripted human so all the laptop do exactly the same all the time, to test the exact same affair and tracking how much work they do, to track how much they throttle or not):
View: https://youtu.be/u1XJAOf_W5w?t=671
The adreno GPU (and its software stack) are either not good, just not ready at all (or both).
But that already done, the deal would already exist and the company should really tell their investor (Qualcomm is public). Yes that was the type of reason they gave them an exclusive and they will have the advantage of what almost a whole year of real field experience (and windows telemetry) over all the competition.
Well obviously,... so ? Why would microsoft care, what are they giving in exchange, Microsoft would want now ?
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Here's an obvious example where these new laptops are probably perfectly fine: remote development. At my new job, I have a pretty decent, brand new laptop with a 1340P, which is, IIRC, 4P+8E. However, I don't even have dev software installed on it--most work is done either telnetted into our Linux servers or editing source in stuff like UltraEdit (and email/Teams). A considerably weaker laptop would probably mostly be fine. And as for battery life, this machine will almost exclusively be used at my desk at work or at home.
Nvidia usually make premium stuff. So if they want to make a budget version then they would outsource it to mediatek
So nvidia could be working on multiple options:
Premium (own) stuff on latest TSMC for a surface handheld
Budget (outsourced) stuff on cheaper Intel nodes (for Dell et al ???)
Unless the software you're using just doesn't run due to compatibility layer issues and low demand resulting in developers not porting their software to Windows ARM - In which case extended battery life means very little.
In relation to ram upgrades under ARM processors, it is possible and performance is still outstanding. The Ampere series of processors allow for ram upgrades as well as fully functional pcie slots supporting dGPU's, and with memory bandwidth of 1.3Tflops performance isn't too shabby. Sure, at this point in time these systems are expensive and dGPU drivers require more development, but as a truly open platform such devices look promising.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=argfZlPZKdY
DukenukemX
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That's the problem with these new chips as there's plenty of people who can't stop praising it, and there's plenty of people who found major issues with them. Wendell from Level1Tech''s had not good things to say about these. He's described it as beta testers, for good reasons.
View: https://youtu.be/qKRmYW1D0S0?si=Ekdwsk9sWOtAL16D
We know Intel isn't very good at power efficiency, but why is AMD missing from that list? AMD's been more power efficient since Ryzen, and faster since Zen3, so why are reviewers not including AMD when compared to Qualcomm? Even when AMD is introduced, it's usually something like a 7000 series which isn't even current.
The Level1Techs video has a game developer who talks about the awful experience he has working on ARM. He claims the Qualcomm graphic drivers are bad. When it comes to things like anticheat, it really doesn't work on ARM due to Microsoft and Qualcomm pointing fingers are each other. What's also interesting is that Qualcomm doesn't want the word "ARM" shown anywhere. It seems that Qualcomm and ARM are having issues with each other.
Is there much of a gap betwee the 7 and 8 series ? It will do some GPU task much better mabye...
View: https://youtu.be/K1TgWbeePxI?t=459
ARM did try to shut them down quite hard I think:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/arm_qualcomm_lawsuit/
Arm sought to block custom processor core technology acquired by the Snapdragon giant. The reason Arm believes this should happen? Qualcomm allegedly breached Arm's licensing agreements by continuing development of custom cores after the two parties failed to negotiate a new deal for the tech's use.
Has you say, ARM may be way more open in some ways than x86 duopoly, it is not RISK either.
Has for the current buyer, they are beta tester and telemetry feedback giver, yes.
DukenukemX
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If we were to remove these Qualcomm based laptops, would people be upset? Is having marginally better battery life going to make up for all the problems these devices have? Saying that these devices are a dumpster fire is putting it nicely.
It's not even just that, but there's no attempt to make this better. Microsoft has literally done nothing to help the adoption of Windows to ARM, and Qualcomm is just as complacent. Who do we go to for a driver bug in the GPU? That's right, it's not a gaming device so the GPU can be a buggy slow mess? The USB ports don't always work. The external monitor display doesn't always work. The laptop just randomly turns off. I think it was Just Josh who had to return a device for another one because the driver couldn't be made to work. These are just really bad devices. Anyone saying anything positive about these laptops are just really deep in Qualcomm's pockets.
They have marginally better efficacy during workload, you have significantly better battery life for a lot of the most common usage, because of how much better they are at iddle-near iddle (and a sleep which will not be a small part to do with having battery issue during a weekend without plugs), the example just above show 1h30, 2h for intel 155h-165h vs 5h30 for an surface laptop 7 13x plus doing the same thing, that not marginal that more than doubling.
Make what better ? I would bet you that yes there is money and people being spent right now at Microsoft, Qualcomm, OEM, etc... at doing this better and in the next months you will see patch and the next iteration of those laptopr will have some issue fixed. That they have no time for a really small indie game studio without an wikipedia page, priority are on the google-adobe-Fornite and other big name yet to all work correctly is not at all but not all no attempt to make this better. We can imagine they will fix USB, adobe, google drives, external monitor before any issue about indie game studio affair.
The level of conspiracy..... For one it can be Asus, Lenovo, MIcrosoft and others pockets, for 2, lot of people saying a lot of positive things about bought the device themselve. Just Josh you gave video off gave it a really glowing review.
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StoleMyOwnCar
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That's exactly what I predicted. As I said, with a performance laptop you're generally going to have it plugged in, so why in the world are they even trying this on any performance laptop? Even if it was more efficient, who cares if it doesn't run everything? I think at best I could only see these working on a Surface Pro, but even on a Surface Pro the whole reason I got a Surface Pro over a standard cheapo android tablet is precisely because I wanted to be able to run all apps, including some visual novels and other niche crap. If it doesn't do that, why bother?
I'm sure it will get better with time, but I can't see myself ever bothering to move to it. Purchased a ryzen/4060 RTX gaming laptop on the cheap recently and am more than satisfied. Lasts plenty long enough for just browsing due to the iGPU, too.
They seem to be all ultra thin-low noise affair with ultra basic iGPU, not yet have performance laptop with those (not sure they would make sense like you say), they are just priced like some. Those are for people using laptop unplugged and carry them often a la Macbook air type.
DukenukemX
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Yea, against Intel but what about AMD? Even still, how does this translate to real world benefits? Is it worth having compatibility issues, buggy hardware, and no technical support?
This is Microsoft's 4th attempt at ARM, and these Snapdragon X chips have been delayed nearly a year, and we still need more time to get fixes? Intel 155H, 165H, and etc all work good now. Should I mention AMD?
Then it's not a Windows laptop. If you can't run Windows applications then it's not working properly. It's not an excuse if it's games, and it isn't just games. Stop using games as if that's where the problems starts and ends. Just Josh reports no Adobe Premier or After Effects. Google Desktop Drive doesn't work. Ableton Native Instruments Izotope and Record Box does not work. No official Java from Oracle, which is why Minecraft doesn't work. Android Studio doesn't work. VMWare and VirtualBox doesn't work. Forget gaming, these devices aren't for productivity.
Again stop it with the games. The shit doesn't work. I repeat, the shit doesn't work. Again, it bears repeating, this shit doesn't work. This junk doesn't work so much that it turns itself off.
What glowing review? Most of the stuff I'm pointing out came from his review. The main thing I'm trying to explain is how useful are these laptops? Again, as an end user, don't care, just compute. Long battery life, bright screen. Gonna close my laptop and put it to sleep and it's not gonna be dead in 12 hours from having been asleep at 80%. Just basic stuff, I would just like to use my computer. With Lunar Lake coming later this year and AMD's Zen5 next month, do you really think it's worth dealing with ARM and all these problems? You think Intel won't catch up to Apple and Qualcomm in efficiency with Lunar Lake? Better off buying an AMD laptop now. Still better off with Meteor Lake laptops, despite their inefficiency because at least you can actually do stuff.
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Obviously depends, for a thin client that want nice monitor, keyboard, keypad and battery life to do devs (with the stuff compiling and running remote) it can.
The excuse for not giving good support is not about it being a game, it is about it being small (you need to be a 100k spending enterprise according to Wendell), you are the one using a game dev lack of support for their gpu issue and others in that very example. Just Josh reports no Adobe Premier or After Effects, yes that why I mention I suspect it is where more the support staff would be working on. Same for why I mentionned google, I mentionned all those example because I am not saying it is just games, I am saying mini game studio not having support would not be surprising when big enterprise need it and would have it obviously way more.
I mention issue with USB, adobe, google drives, extarnal monitor, saying games are far to be an important issue with those, are you answer is stop with the games ? And after that you send a youtube link with a timestamp on someone having issue playing game ? Maybe you did not quote the right part of the message ?
Hyper-V has a arm version, wsl, docker and vscode do.
That it was so good that it could be worth for some to buy this and save $100 over buying the Apple alternative, the best laptop maker there is, that a bit of an unexpected high praise for a thin windows laptop, it is not a big rebate.
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DukenukemX
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Apple is not the benchmark here and x86 is not the reason why Windows sucks. These new laptops aren't as cheap as their x86 counterparts, as I can find other brands that offer a much lower price for more hardware. People think Windows sucks because x86, but it's the other way around. Look at all the power management crap people had to do to get the performance or battery life you'd expect out of these Qualcomm chips. The Windows power management is absolutely awful and why when AMD is power limited they can compete with Qualcomm in power efficiency. Microsoft was suppose to fix Windows sleep, but didn't. Instead of fixing the Windows Start menu, they instead tried to introduce AI features that nobody will ever use, and even demanded that Microsoft remove them. Instead of not putting ads in Windows, they are giving you the choice of not having ads curated for you, which is not what people wanted. It's not an x86 issue that ARM can fix, but a Windows issue even with ARM.
I really doubt that true, windows suck has been something people think since windows 95 at least (I do not remember a time that windows sucks was not the common ethos), with some small bubble of 98 se 2 is not that terrible type.
But yes, Apple MacBook air seem obviously the benchmark for the thin client that do not run all the windows x86 stuff out of the box, that the perfect client the Windows user that was thinking about buying an Macbook, to do some days a week of WFH in a cafe or when it is nice outside, outside.
They did for the ARM version, according to Wendell they did put the mighty Office people of all people on the sleep issues.
Not sure which issue we would be talking about, if it is for a day long of light work on battery, they seem to have made a giant gain from it. If it is not being in a risky monopolistic stronghold situation enforced with patents, which yes obviously ARM could help to get out from, like Intel on the dgpu market could in both case chance are that they will both fail and the consumer (and oem that sales those products) will lost big time by that lack of competition and stay in the current duopoly.
Look how much Intel charge for a 1360p to oem, for 217mm of chips on a mediocre node, that make Nvidia retail price to us look really cheap.
DukenukemX
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Windows being bad wasn't a thing until Windows ME, and even then it was short lived because Windows XP came out soon afterwards. Windows being bad didn't really start until Windows 8 when Microsoft was trying to force a terrible UI design meant for tablets down peoples throats.
Despite Qualcomm being ARM, it still needs a fan. Also, the Macbook Air loves to get hot and thermal throttle.
And their solution was to use Device Tree instead of ACPI.
Or nothing if you compare them to AMD, which a lot of reviewers seem to avoid. Everyone wants to compare them to Intel because Meteor Lake is clearly not as good.
You're not fixing a duopoly by going ARM. Apple is technically an oligopoly as nobody can make hardware for MacOS. Even when Microsoft's and Qualcomm deal does end and isn't renewed, who exactly is capable of making a competitive ARM product for Windows besides Nvidia? Qualcomm had to buy Nuvia which were Apple's old engineers who helped make the M1 chips. Who else is going to make competitive ARM chips? Certainly won't be Intel as they'd rather push for new changes to x86 to modernize it. As for AMD, why would they make an ARM chip when Intel pays them for x64? Intel and AMD have so much cross-licensing agreements that it would be crazy to make ARM chips now. Especially if you consider how hostile ARM is now with their license, as Qualcomm isn't even allowed to advertise their chips as ARM. ARM wants these Snapdragon X laptops to be destroyed and to stop using Nuvia's designs.
How much does AMD charge? Also, why does it matter when these Snapdragon X based laptops cost $1k or more? Plenty of AMD and Intel laptops bellow that price.
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That windows being ultra bad. Southpark shooting Bill Gates in the head joke was before windows ME release, all the Ford vs Windows meme has well, the idea that windows did not have vast and louds haters is completely rewritten history.
I really doubt it will be nothing against AMD (which indeed not sure I ever saw a single review trying to simulate realistic days of work on an AMD laptop, they tend to make constant work where AMD would shine instead) something like that (or the scripted version):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1TxnZzs4kI
Well you obviously possibly (nvidia, qualcoom, ampere, Huawei (imagine china entering the pc desktop cpu race how massively good it would be for consumer) apple, microsoft giant amount of people have an ARM license already), but not going arm, by having both coexisting you automatically do, I am sure some laptop maker brought it up when making some deal already.
Windows is important but end of it all ? AMD could become free of Intel and obviously could make a competitive cpu, nvidia, mediatek, ampere, Huawei. AMD would do it because of something Microsoft offer them (like make the next Xbox an arm cpu, will buy millions of them if you make a PC desktop version as well, giant amount of R&D will have been amortized for the console already anyway), AMD already has the license and everything and obviously if they make really good one can always gain Apple device as a customer and one day the phone market become easier.
Did they with that type of screen just started to match that price because of the competition ? It matter for OEM and once we get to buy them for desktop pc we do not have to care about laptop price, look at how cheap RISK cpus goes on alibaba these days, CPU costing so much more than gpu by mm despite the GPU coming with memory, a small motherboard, a fancy cooler, throwing a rench in that, who exactly would against that ? What the possible hurt ? Either ARM cpu does not become good enough to be worth the rebate or they will.
And once it get clear that those Snapdragon laptop does not sales and those hyped up price, the rebate will be pass to the customer to clear them, they need user and telemetry feedback.
DukenukemX
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Windows was bad back then because when an application crashed, so did the PC. Windows 98SE sucked because Microsoft took away the ability to shutdown or restart in MSDOS mode. ME sucked because Microsoft made changes to how networking worked which cause issues for a lot of people, including myself. Where as today's Windows sucking comes from Microsoft preventing users from making offline accounts and putting ads into the start menu. Windows power management is also part of that sucking.
Would be nice to see someone test these against AMD. Later this month AMD's new chips will be out so I hope that's the time when someone can test battery life against Qualcomm.
Most of those companies don't make products that can compete. Ampere is for servers while Huawei and Mediatek are for mobile devices. Meidatek especially since my experience with them has usually been with terrible performance. The only reason I think Nvidia could compete is because they literally have all the money, but so far haven't made any product that's even scratched the mobile market.
AMD wouldn't say no to making ARM CPU's if offered money. Between x86 and ARM licensing, I would think AMD prefers x86 licensing because again they have lots of cross licensing deals with Intel. You will most certainly see the next Xbox using an ARM chip, probably from AMD, but that would be more of the death of the Xbox platform.
Why do we care about OEM? Also, how does buying ARM chips for desktop help lower laptop prices?
I'm assuming you meant RISCV, and whoi cares. RISCV won't happen.
There are so many small devices that have everything you need for cheap on Aliexpress, including ones with AMD and Intel chips in them. I know, I'm looking into them to replace cable.
So you're saying these laptops will eventually get cheaper? Cause right now the prices for being a beta tester is astronomical. These devices wouldn't be so bad at half the price, but not at current pricing.
I am saying if this become a success and we get DYU ARM desktop CPU we do not have to care about laptop price, has caring for OEM price of acquisition parts, it is (if the competition amongs themselve and external with apple) we get laptop with better material-keyboard-drive-memory, better monitor, etc... for the same price and they make more money, caring about price of OEM because it impact the final price, a bit like all the conversation about Nvidia pricing we care what they charge the Asus and EVGA of the world (would they have charged less we would have EVGA cards, EVGA would still make them and that would be nice, they were pretty much the best at the price).
And if PC come back to be a business you can make money from making and selling them to people (like say Apple), that open the possibility to not have to push post sales products (antivirus, product suite, ads, etc...) aggressively.
Apparently they are not selling very well according to Moore laws is death "retails sources" (maybe there is no price to sell them as it is a bit of an enterprise pay for their worker device type and if it does not run 100% of what it needs too...), I feel they will need to be everything else equal priced under AMD-intel alternative to attract people, just a guess, the gpu offer on the others alone (strength on AMD, able to actually run almost everything on Intel).... or for the drivers to get better faster than the needed price cut.
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