Qualcomm appears to be testing the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 chipset (aka SC8380) inside a development device with a 10-inch display. This indicates that the chipset is targeting Windows on 10-inch (or larger) tablets, possibly some 2-in-1 tablets, and even ARM laptops. Microsoft may give it another shot with a Surface Neo type device with dual screens.
Of course, these will compete against Apple’s iPads and MacBook Airs with M-series chipsets. This is because the chipset and its Oryon CPU cores are designed by his Nuvia, a company founded by his former Apple employee who worked on the aforementioned M series his chipset Appropriate.
The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 (codenamed Hamoa) will feature 12 CPU cores, 8 performance (up to 3.4GHz) and 4 efficiency cores (up to 2.5GHz). The built-in Adreno 740 GPU is quite capable, but larger form factors like laptops can also be outfitted with an external GPU (connected via 8x PCIe 4.0) as long as it has cooling.
These larger devices also support NVMe drives (4x PCIe 4.0), but smaller and cheaper devices are likely to stick to UFS 4.0. Connectivity options include USB 4 (Thunderbolt 4 based) with DisplayPort 1.4a.
Qualcomm has reportedly been testing Hamoa-based development devices since last November. It’s not entirely clear when the first commercial devices will be available, but it could be later this year or early 2024.
sauce
