Its been almost 2 years considering that Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8cx, its flagship ARM processor for Windows laptops, however at IFA 2020, the business is unveiling its follower: the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G, which guarantees some incremental enhancements over the original.
The 8cx Gen 2 also offers better battery life, with Qualcomm promising not just a full days worth of work off a single charge however over 25 constant hours of use, enough for “multiple days of battery life”– an outstanding achievement, assuming it really holds up in the real world.
However, Qualcomm is very interested in showing that the brand-new 8cx Gen 2 chipset is more than efficient in going toe-to-toe with Intels conventional systems. It claims that the 8cx Gen 2 uses significant performance gains over both a comparable 10th Gen Core i5 chip from Intel along with Intels Lakefield chips (which are implied to straight challenge Qualcomms laptop computer efforts, and even utilize a comparable hybrid core system.).
The renewed chips come as Qualcomm is wanting to press its advantage with 5G laptop computers. While the 8cx was announced in December 2018, the very first 5G laptop computers have only started to arrive this year, and as my colleague Cameron Faulkner noted in his review of the Lenovo Flex 5G, while the battery life on these makers is certainly extraordinary, things like app support still arent there for ARM-based Windows computers. Plus, Qualcomm will have some fresh competitors: Samsung has actually already announced the Galaxy Book Flex 5G, powered by Intels 11th Gen chips and developed on Samsungs own 5G modem.
Qualcomm states to anticipate the first 8cx Gen 2 5G gadgets to be out later this year, starting with the Acer Spin 7, which was revealed along with the brand-new chipset (and will also be Acers first 5G computer system.).
Regardless of the addition of “5G” to the name, the 8cx Gen 2 does not actually repeat much on the connectivity front: itll use the same X24 LTE modem and X55 5G modem choices as the initial 8cx, however itll be up to makers to decide whether to provide either.
Other brand-new features on the 8cx Gen 2 consist of built-in support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1, Qualcomms Aqstic audio innovation (which is utilized for “echo-cancellation and noise suppression”), and support for double 4K external displays at 60fps. Theres also vaguer pledges of enhanced AI capacities, which must enable for more functions like the Surface Pro Xs eye-contact function, and improved security performance for business and enterprise clients.
Qualcomm wasnt too forthcoming about what particular efficiency enhancements the 8cx Gen 2 will use over its predecessor beyond stating that it would provide “generational efficiency and efficiency gains.”
