American chip manufacturer Qualcomm may be gearing up to produce a worthy rival to the Apple’s M1 chipset, with a next-generation Snapdragon 8cx chipset in the works, as per a report by GizmoChina. As the competition is expected to be Apple Silicon, the company is reportedly planning to introduce the next-gen SD 8cx chipset to the Microsoft Windows notebooks and 2-in-1 convertibles.
As per the report, there are two variants of the new SD 8cx chip under development. One of them is the Snapdragon SC8280XP which reportedly comes with 4 high-end cores called “Gold +” that clock 2.7GHz. These 4 cores are paired with other 4 “Gold” cores running at 2.43Ghz. With these in the microcircuitry, the next-generation Snapdragon 8cx chip is expected to run and process a lot faster than the most recent SD 8cx chipset. As for how well it is going to stand up to competition from Apple’s M1 can be tested only when it is released.
According to the report, the upcoming SD 8cx chipset is also believed to incorporate an integrated NPU in its design “to handle AI-based tasks with up to 15 TOPs of performance”.
Apple has already ditched Intel processors for its new MacBooks that run now on the M1 chipset that includes an octa-core CPU. The M1 chip is the first personal computer chip built using 5-nanometer process technology and has 16 billion transistors with integrated graphics. On the other hand, the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx has been built with a 7-nanometer technology and is claimed to be the first 7nm PC platform. It includes an octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 495 CPU and Adreno 680 GPU.