Snapdragon X Elite is changing the Windows landscape
A new era for the Windows PC
We have been waiting for Windows on ARM to hit its stride for years now, and it’s finally becoming a reality with Snapdragon X Elite. Qualcomm has finally produced a chip that can put up a fight against Apple Silicon and traditional x86 CPUs. There are a lot of upcoming laptops powered by the Snapdragon X Series that promise stellar battery life, better efficiency, and new AI capabilities with Copilot+.
This is not just a new chip, it’s a paradigm shift. A major hurdle for Windows on ARM was limited software support, but that’s becoming a thing of the past. Microsoft’s new Prism emulator will allow ARM laptops to easily run x86 applications — similar to Apple’s Rosetta 2 emulator. On top of that, app developers are announcing ARM versions of their apps almost every day now. This includes apps like Slack, DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and more.
For now, Qualcomm is strictly making the X Elite chips for laptops. However, CEO Cristiani Amon promised that the X Series chips would come to “all form factors.” You can soon expect to find them in all-in-one PCs, handhelds, and even mini PCs.
We ran the benchmarks on X Elite, and it’s worth waiting for based on its performance alone. The Surface Pro 11 arrives with this new chip on June 18, and you can expect more devices in the weeks to come.
Ryzen Strix Point and Ryzen 9000 are almost here
AMD looks to extend its lead in performance
AMD can’t just sit back and let Qualcomm steal all the thunder. At Computex, Team Red announced the new mobile Zen 5 CPUs — the Ryzen AI 300 series, code named Strix Point. These chips are built on the new 4nm Zen 5 architecture. This smaller process node will deliver better performance and efficiency, as is usually the case with a new architecture.
The new mobile CPUs also feature an upgraded RDNA 3.5 graphics engine and an upgraded XDNA 2 NPU architecture. NPUs are designed for executing machine learning algorithms and AI workloads, and AMD has the best-performing architecture on paper. They’re promising 50 TOPS (trillions of operations per second), which is more than the Snapdragon X family’s 45 TOPS. It will be very interesting to see how both AMD and Qualcomm compete in the coming months.
AMD is also giving desktop users plenty to look forward to. Alongside Ryzen AI 300, they also announced Ryzen 9000 desktop chips, code named Granite Ridge. These chips promise a 16% IPC improvement, and that’s without a significant bump in boost clocks or the total cache. Considering they’re even more efficient than Ryzen 7000 because of the new Zen 5 process, Intel should be a bit worried. The best part is that these chips will work with existing AM5 boards.
That’s not all. According to a report from Club386, AMD is targeting a September release for the X3D versions of their Ryzen 9000 chips. Ryzen 3D V-cache has proven to be excellent for gaming, and is the reason why the 7800X3D was so impressive. For now, take the rumor with a grain of salt. Still, there’s enough info there that I would wait and see before buying a new CPU.
Intel Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake
Can Intel make a comeback?
Intel has a lot to worry about with Qualcomm and AMD, and they have been making some bold claims recently. They’re promising that Lunar Lake will bust the myth about ARM’s efficiency over x86. The upcoming mobile chips will introduce on-device AI and lower power consumption. Lunar Lake will ditch hyperthreading, as it’s an unnecessary feature in laptops that sips a lot of power.
These new chips have Skymont E-cores (efficiency cores) that will run most of the tasks on your laptop. The Lion Cove P-cores (performance cores) will only come into play when the Thread Director determines a task requires more power. On top of that, they’re also promising a 50% improvement with the new Xe2 integrated graphics. Finally, the on-board NPU has up to 48 TOPS, making it ready for Copilot+.
On the desktop side, we’re expecting Intel to introduce their 15th-gen Arrow Lake chips in late 2024. Like Lunar Lake, these 15th-gen chips will also ditch hyperthreading. Fortunately, Intel is still supporting DDR4 memory for budget gamers. However, you’ll need a new motherboard as they’re switching to a new LGA1851 socket.
Right now, we don’t know much about Arrow Lake other than it is likely to be more efficient because of the new 2nm manufacturing process. Again, it’s worth waiting to see if Intel can compete with AMD and give us CPUs that have better power and thermal efficiency.
New graphics cards are on their way
Nvidia Blackwell, AMD RDNA 4, and Intel Battlemage
If you’re a PC gamer, you’re likely quite dissatisfied with the state of budget GPUs in 2024. We can’t tell yet if the upcoming graphics cards from Intel, AMD, or Nvidia are going to change that situation, but there’s a lot of speculation that all three manufacturers are launching new GPUs later this year.
With Nvidia, we’re expecting higher bandwidth GDDR7 memory, a Multi-Chip Module (MCM) design, and a new 4nm manufacturing process with a higher core count. The upcoming Blackwell GPUs will also make better use of PCIe 5.0 transfer speeds and feature support for DisplayPort 2.1 instead of last-gen’s DisplayPort 1.4.
On the other hand, AMD is also looking to launch its RDNA 4 GPUs in the latter half of 2024. Apparently, the RX 8000 series will stick with GDDR6 memory to keep costs down. According to YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead, the Navi 48 and 44 GPUs are being built on the TSMC N4P 5nm process. How all that translates to performance and efficiency is yet to be seen. By the way, I highly recommend the Moore’s Law Is Dead video linked here if you want to dive into the rumor mill further.
Finally, we’re also expecting Intel to launch their new Battlemage GPUs sometime in 2024. The new GPUs will reportedly use GDDR6X memory instead of the previous generation’s GDDR6. We’re also expecting a new TSMC N5P process, though there have also been reports of a 4nm node. Hopefully, Intel will have better driver support this year to avoid all the issues seen with the Alchemist launch.
Don’t count out Apple
M4 and Apple Intelligence are on the horizon
If you’re a longtime Windows user like me, Apple will need to make some seriously massive changes to make you switch to macOS. At WWDC, they just might have achieved that with macOS Sequoia. This new update introduces iPhone Mirroring, new Safari features, better gaming support, improved Window Tiling, and more.
However, the most important update is access to on-device generative AI thanks to Apple Intelligence. This new suite of AI features integrates ChatGPT natively, adds system-wide writing tools, and makes improvements to Siri. There’s a lot more though, and I highly recommend reading the linked article to see everything that Apple has to offer.
Moving away from the software side, Apple has also made some great improvements on the hardware side with their new M4 chip. While it’s restricted to the iPad Pro for now, you can expect to see the M4 chips on Macs very soon. If you’re looking for a powerful laptop for work, I’d wait and see what the upcoming M4 MacBook Pro (likely launching in Fall) has in store.
Patience is key
I know that this post might be creating a sense of FOMO, so if you need to upgrade immediately for work or happen to have some time off and want to game, go for it. However, just know that we are expecting big improvements to laptops, CPUs, and GPUs this year. Personally, I would not spend a significant amount of money on upgrading my laptop or desktop right now, especially if you can wait a few months.
