Qualcomm Upgrades Always Connected PCs With New Snapdragon 8cx Platform

Qualcomm today unveiled its next-generation processor platform for Always Connected PCs. The company today unveiled the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform, it’s high-end processor platform that will power the next-gen PCs.

Snapdragon 8cx is the world’s first 7nm PC platform, beating Intel’s processors by a long run. The company’s new 8cx processors will come in devices along with the existing Snapdragon 850, with the former expected to support high-end devices.

Here are the highlights:

• New Kyro 495 processor, the fastest ever built by Qualcomm. 2x more transistors, and 2x memory bandwidth for faster performance. It’s 3.6x faster than the Snapdragon 835
• A larger cache than previous platforms allowing for faster multi-tasking
• New Adreno 680 GPU designed to offer 2x boost in graphics performance
• Supports two 4K external displays at a time
• 2nd gen HDR playback
• New AI engine with Hexagon 685 DSP, combined with enhanced support for Alexa and Cortana with Qualcomm’s Aqstic technology
• Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ tech support for faster charging of your device
• Snapdragon X24 LTE modem bringing speeds of up to 2Gbps
• Support for Windows 10 Enterprise for the first time, as well as Pro and Home

Qualcomm hopes to ship the new Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform on Always Connected PCs sometime in Q3 2019.

The new upgrades are massive gains for Qualcomm on the PC, and Intel has a ton of catching up to do. With Microsoft continuing investment on ARM, and other developers (like Mozilla, which is porting Firefox to ARM), it’s clear ARM is the future of Windows. And yes, Qualcomm is really coming for Intel’s business.