Rumor of 18-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Flagship Emerges; on Claimed 64 GB RAM Test Platform

[T0@st]

During a recent Computex keynote presentation, Qualcomm announced the next edition of its Snapdragon Summit. This year's event will take place in Hawaii, starting on September 23 and concluding on the 25th. The company's 2024 new product showcase took place last October, so an earlier than expected scheduled follow-up has caused industry observers to raise a collective eyebrow. Insiders foresee an unveiling of Qualcomm's next-gen flagship notebook/slimline laptop processor; mid-April leaks produced a smattering of elevated (generational) performance numbers. Late last week, Roland Quandt weighed in with fresh pre-release theories: "SC8480XP aka SD X2 Elite in testing with 64 GB RAM... looking like (an) 18-core thing, more and more."

Not long ago, the tenured semiconductor industry watcher linked the alleged Snapdragon X2 Elite flagship chip to a SK Hynix 48 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD-equipped SiP (System-in-Package) test platform. Mid-March "import-export database records" pointed to early evaluations of 18-core processor designs. The very best current-gen Snapdragon X Elite SoC leverages a 12-core "Oryon" design. Additional murmurs have driven speculation about diversified Snapdragon X2 Elite chips; allegedly powering desktop applications. Q1'25 rumors suggested the existence of setups configured with 120 mm AIO cooling solutions.



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[hsew]

CPU performance and battery life of SDE1 is already great. QC need to double down on their software efforts. Bump the x86 emu experience up a few more notches, release real GPU drivers, actually embrace Linux (yeah I get it; fat chance, M$ probably neutered any QC Linux venture in exchange for their Win/x86 emulation collab, but I can still dream).

Otherwise, QC will remain a niche in the consumer computer space. Where they are right now reminds me of late-2000’s ATI just after being acquired by AMD. A bit awkward, not great marketshare, but putting up good performance numbers and being endeared by the community.

… Except, this time, unlike ATI/AMD, nobody in this space actually likes QC… so counting on community favor probably won’t get them very far. QC need to learn the lesson from Team Red’s unfortunately fateful decision not to develop in software 15 years ago unlike their famously hated, green rival. We can see how that turned out for everyone.

 

[igormp]

actually embrace Linux

I actually have more hopes for Nvidia to reach good upstream support with their ARM SoCs than for qcom to manage to do so.

 

[Mack4285]

CPU performance and battery life of SDE1 is already great. QC need to double down on their software efforts. Bump the x86 emu experience up a few more notches, release real GPU drivers, actually embrace Linux (yeah I get it; fat chance, M$ probably neutered any QC Linux venture in exchange for their Win/x86 emulation collab, but I can still dream).

Otherwise, QC will remain a niche in the consumer computer space. Where they are right now reminds me of late-2000’s ATI just after being acquired by AMD. A bit awkward, not great marketshare, but putting up good performance numbers and being endeared by the community.

… Except, this time, unlike ATI/AMD, nobody in this space actually likes QC… so counting on community favor probably won’t get them very far. QC need to learn the lesson from Team Red’s unfortunately fateful decision not to develop in software 15 years ago unlike their famously hated, green rival. We can see how that turned out for everyone.

My impression was that Qualcomm had intentions to support Linux about one year ago, yet it seems like a big struggle to get Linux working at all on todays Snapdragon laptops/tablets. Did Microsoft tell them to drop Linux support due to their partnership? It all looks suspicious.

 

[wNotyarD]

My impression was that Qualcomm had intentions to support Linux about one year ago, yet it seems like a big struggle to get Linux working at all on todays Snapdragon laptops/tablets. Did Microsoft tell them to drop Linux support due to their partnership? It all looks suspicious.

QC can't even get their drivers right throughout their Windows partners. If you have a MS Surface you get everything asap. An ASUS or Lenovo? Good luck mate.

 

[ncrs]

QC can't even get their drivers right throughout their Windows partners. If you have a MS Surface you get everything asap. An ASUS or Lenovo? Good luck mate.

Qualcomm couldn't even complete the X-Elite Dev Kit, it was delayed for a very long time, basically launching after consumer devices. And in the end the entire program was cancelled.
The driver situation, as you wrote, is also quite weird with the whole support being basically shifted to OEMs.

 

[igormp]

My impression was that Qualcomm had intentions to support Linux about one year ago, yet it seems like a big struggle to get Linux working at all on todays Snapdragon laptops/tablets. Did Microsoft tell them to drop Linux support due to their partnership? It all looks suspicious.

As others mentioned, the scenario on Linux is simular, but worse.
Qcom (slowly) managed to get the core parts of the SoC up streamed, but any peripheral (which is dependent on the model/manufacturer) was done by the community whenever one dev got a device and decided to tinker with it.
So you could get a working cpu, but no guarantees of display, wifi, keyboard, etc etc.

 

[Mack4285]

As others mentioned, the scenario on Linux is simular, but worse.
Qcom (slowly) managed to get the core parts of the SoC up streamed, but any peripheral (which is dependent on the model/manufacturer) was done by the community whenever one dev got a device and decided to tinker with it.
So you could get a working cpu, but no guarantees of display, wifi, keyboard, etc etc.

Is it going to improve, or what is Qualcomm's plan? I don't even think power management for the CPU works.

 

[igormp]

Is it going to improve, or what is Qualcomm's plan? I don't even think power management for the CPU works.

Honestly it seems like they've abandoned it, there's barely any work going on from them. There's some minor work from individuals on different devices, but it doesn't seem like it has reached daily-driver status:

Yes, the Snapdragon X Elite is nearly a one year old platform now but still not even fully working under Linux and thus who knows how long until the Linux support is in good shape for the Snapdragon X Elite 2 / X2 Elite or whatever the next-generation Snapdragon laptop SoCs will be called.

Due to all of the missing/not-yet-implemented features on the Acer Swift 14 AI and various other Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptops under Linux, it's really not suitable at all for daily use unless you are just a very lightweight web browser user and not caring about web camera, audio, etc. Plus the very hot thermals and at times powering off after extended periods of load is also a show-stopper for many.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Benchmarks On Ubuntu Linux vs. AMD vs. Intel - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com