[Hardware Canucks] Snapdragon X2E Review - It CRUSHES Everything, but...
Posted by Noble00_@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 37 comments
Posted by Noble00_@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 37 comments
horatiobanz@reddit
I wish during battery life graphs they called out how many Pixels each laptop was pushing. The Zenbook A16 is pushing 5.2 million pixels while the A14 is pushing 2.3 million Pixels.... And the Macbook Pro 14 is pushing almost 6 million pixels.
DerpSenpai@reddit
size of panel matters too
iluvchromosomes@reddit
Refresh rate matters more than anything.
The new Dell XPS 14 with panther lake + VRR LCD can hit 40+ hours of battery life if the screen is displaying a static image. Because the refresh rate is 1hz on a static image.
rey_russo@reddit
It'd certainly be interesting to see panel power consumption metrics, but it might be (I really don't have a clue) quite complex to quantify since lets say 4k OLED vs Tandem OLED vs Mini LED vs IPS while pushing a similar amount of pixels are very different implementations
dfv157@reddit
I don't get QC's absolute disdain for the FOSS community. If I wanted a locked down ARM platform, why in all hell would I choose this garbage over a macbook? At least with MBA I'd get something resembling BSD. Additionally Apple has made the pricing quite competitive (MBA 13" 16/512 is $950 at Costco). QC/ASUS dares to list the X2E-88 16/512 for $1150??? Who the hell do they think would be their customers?
Admirable-Extent2296@reddit
wrong. who said it's locked down? If you can't do it yourself, as soon as someone writes the device tree for eg. this Asus A14, you will be able to boot Linux on it. Qualcomm IS funding linux driver work. It won't be perfect, as there are some missing features still, but it's better than never like it will be the case for the M5.
This is literally their second attempt at laptop CPUs, can yall cut them some slack?
the_dude_that_faps@reddit
Exactly, this is their second laptop CPU attempt. Why should we cut them some slack? They got the first one free.
And this is after the first run of tablet-turned-to-laptop CPU attempts... So how long should we be waiting?
dfv157@reddit
lol no. They are a multi-billion multi-national corporation. They have been stonewalling Linux on their arch for decades now. They are not some scrappy startup with limited funds and manpower. They only have themselves to blame for the reputation they have.
Admirable-Extent2296@reddit
Well, I'm sure the entity known as Qualcomm will be sad to hear u/dfv157 and a few other people on here won't cut it some slack! They'll have no choice but to do business with the other 7.99 billion people :(
dfv157@reddit
Ah yes, this is that great qualcomm strategy: alienate potential enthusiast and think the rest of the world will give a rats ass about this garbage and not just buy a macbook neo instead.
BandeFromMars@reddit
I think their problem is that they aren't doing business with all of those people and their chips aren't selling all that well. They have maybe 10% of the premium PC market right now.
TechTechTerrible@reddit
Why does every Qualcomm thread have at least one poster like you ugly crying while screaming “leave Qualcomm alone!” Like they aren’t a multi billion dollar corporation who’s asking for my money. If they want me to cut them some slack then they can lower the price. At this price point an unworkable gpu driver is outrageous.
Admirable-Extent2296@reddit
It's their second attempt and things have already drastically improved since the X Elite I didn't say that compassionately but as a matter of fact. Corporations are made of people and their driver team is likely just a little worse than the competition, now combine that with the fact they had to start from almost anew
This is not the right place to complain about corporations existing
You are free to not buy it, The X Elite has been workable for 90% of users for the past year and a half, they don't need your money.
BandeFromMars@reddit
I hate to be that guy, but this is their 4 or 5th chance dating back all the way to 2017/18 with the Snapdragon 850.
Admirable-Extent2296@reddit
My fault, I said second serious attempt already in the first reply, but I forgot that many (mistakenly, if you ask me) don't bother reading everything. Fixed!
BandeFromMars@reddit
I see that now, but can we really call X1 and X2 serious attempts at Qualcomm supporting linux?
cabbeer@reddit
that was literally my exact thoughts, cant wait to see is steamos on arm changes anything
theQuandary@reddit
Qualcomm has always had a reputation for being one of the worse anti-consumer megacorps.
Oligoclase@reddit
My personal takeaway: I'm happy with the $600 Lunar Lake OLED laptop I bought that I will keep until the DRAM and NAND crisis blows over.
jenny_905@reddit
What is that? curious, was wondering if LL laptops would finally be discounted but have yet to see PTL models on shelves.
PastaPandaSimon@reddit
As someone who formerly tried an ARM surface, the CPU core architecture is excellent, but that performance only translates in the limited array of tools that have native ARM versions.
As soon as you run into something that doesn't work, needs to be emulated, or requires a strong GPU, these feel like paper tigers that could really annoy you out of getting one again.
The main issue remains Windows, legacy software compatibility, emulation performance, and GPU/gaming. Which are very tough barriers to not meet expectations in on $1000+ devices that most of these target, that are likely unacceptable compromises for most spending that much money.
bhop_monsterjam@reddit
the next hurdle is can I buy it at a competitive price?
Noble00_@reddit (OP)
HWC + WoA, I know this'll be downvoted but sharing as HWC has some benchs that are interesting. Blender CPU Cycles render and Handbrake are \~50% faster than PTL and STX-P. Adobe LR is alright standing with PTL and STX-P while PS scores 30-45% faster with the former vendors.
HW acceleration is good this time around compared to prev gen. Serviceable against STX-P, while PTL has a comfortable lead. M5 though, still leads in most regards.
As for gaming, I was quite surprised that the non-Extreme fairs well with 33% less MBW. Perhaps more optimizations need to be done. PTL always with the lead, while it competes with mostly STX-P.
On battery is interesting. Their tests aren't as in depth. In handbrake the X2E-88 was 16% slower on battery while the Extreme SKUs didn't lose perf (in fact was faster but a few %?). Also, same observations with PTL. top SKU 388H didn't lose perf (on battery few sec faster?) while 358H was a lot slower.
Overall, my expectations hadn't changed much, I think X2E is a good release. Mirrors Intel with instead interesting CPU vs interesting iGPU. We'll see how their reputation changes as they continue to optimize, with more OEMs and price options in the segment.
DerpSenpai@reddit
They need to use the X2 release to fix Linux and drivers for the iGPU so they can do M5 Pro style dies.
1 small die for budget.
3 dies for higher end. 18 core CPU + 4 slice GPU or 12 slice GPU.
Also if they make it like Apple, the GPU die can live alone with itself (as it has it's own memory controllers) and you can put it onto a PCI-E card
Noble00_@reddit (OP)
Following Phoronix I don't think QC isn't far off from having decent Linux support, as they've been upstreaming to mainline kernel apart from some doomer articles of diff publications.
That's the natural course of action for future SoCs with TSMC capacity always competitive and yield concerns. I don't recall an official number for X2Ee die size but searching I found \~220mm2. With PTL https://kurnal-insights.com/dieshot/intel-panther-lake-h/ It's roughly \~255mm2 or \~274mm2 (base tile) with the schematic leak https://hothardware.com/photo-gallery/newsitem/65038?image=big_jaykihn-panther-lake-diagram.png&tag=popup
55mm2 of that is the PTL GPU die and looking at their phone SoCs I don't see why not QC can make a potent GPU in the future, especially with their yearly cadence.
DerpSenpai@reddit
Yeah, they just need to work on FSR4/DLSS4/XeSS competitor
BandeFromMars@reddit
They do have Snapdragon GSR but its only on mobile. I wonder if they can implement some version of it on the X elite line going forward.
DerpSenpai@reddit
i think it's based on FSR tbh
BandeFromMars@reddit
That's still better than nothing I guess
DerpSenpai@reddit
It's not because FSR3 works on their hardware. they need something better than FSR3
oguzhan377@reddit
So winning at cpu tests losing at gpu (comparing to ptl). Who thought intel gpus will way competitive than their cpus 5 years ago.
kikimaru024@reddit
DerpSenpai@reddit
RAM-a-gadon will screw QC here but 16GB device prices look normal. 32GB though look though
Crap-_@reddit
DOA.
Which idiot would buy this crap when panther lake laptops exist and not to mention even the base model m5 is leagues ahead of this.
Worldly_Topic@reddit
Leagues ahead ? I don't think so. M5 is only better in single core performance.
Crap-_@reddit
You’re forgetting the gpu. The m5 has a VASTLY superior gpu, matching the raw performance of the panther lake b390.
This Qualcomm bs is way behind, plus it draws more power than panther lake and much more than the m5 which only draws a max of 35w.
Worldly_Topic@reddit
Source ? From the benchmarks, the Adreno X2-90 is almost on par with base M5 GPU and it doesn't look like the M5 GPU is "vastly superior" in any way.