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Microsoft Says Windows Laptops With Snapdragon X Elite Will Be Faster Than M3 MacBook Air
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Sadly M$ has copied Apple's outrageous upsale marketing techniques over RAM and SSD.
Would love them to push Apple for a move though but they just make too much selling those upgrades at 20x what is cost them, and by making it compulsory to upgrade at purchase.
Otherwise it would have been nice to have a law banning soldered SSDs or RAM (but now it's all in one chip to circumvent that).
Because Apple does not allow graphics cards, I'd like to see how Windows, Microsoft, and Nvidia, consumers would react to their Windows machines not being compatible with dedicated graphics cards or compatible with them when they ditch Intel. You know ARM's newest flagship chips have Ray Tracing, it's not just Apple using Ray Tracing, It's across the board with ARM's latest designs. The Windows world is not as religious about not allowing Nvidia GPUs as Apple..
I wasn't trying to downplay the importance of fabs, I was just stating that Intel used to lead the industry in both design and build
I think it will not be as solid as what Apple has now, but if Apple gets dumb again like around 2010, I move out again, without problem. I'm plenty capable on Windows, Mac and Linux and have no problem changing, I moved back to macs in 2021 because of ARM and dumb decisions being revised, nothing else, I hope Apple don't forget why a lot of users came back to the PRO versions of the line in the last ~3 years. They can as quickly go away.
I hate to have created an account just for this, but the poster just throws out this line "the Snapdragon X Elite will likely run hotter and require laptops with fans". Where did that come from? It isn't in the article from The Verge. One of the sources says that there will be an 80W variant that requires a fan. That's no surprise. But this line appears to be entirely unsourced. Where did this come from? Is this just a random guess to fill out the post, or did I miss something?
I do expect that Apple will use the latest ARM CPU core and the newest GPU core as the basis for the M4 SoC. That plus the proper optimization for MacOS could still mean a performance gap over Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite SoC, given we don't know how well Microsoft will take full advantage of the Qualcomm SoC hardware registers in the ARM version of Windows 11 (and eventually 12).
Welcome. No you didn’t miss anything. It’s a bit like a war. The first victim is the truth. Facts are for reasonable people, and this site has a lot of partisan supporters who don’t care about facts. But there are also some that do.
I've watched a few videos of some early looks at the Snapdragon X Elite and the benchmarking in tightly controlled tests is pretty good. I don't really see how it will have any impact on Apple as people who want a MacBook will still buy a MacBook.
For Windows on Arm devices to succeed, Microsoft firstly need to get developers on board to ensure their apps work natively and secondly the hardware needs to be priced low enough to force people to take a punt.
Microsoft will be releasing their first Surface devices with these chips inside during May, so it will be interesting how they market these machines and what they will price them at. Microsoft need Windows on Arm hardware to succeed, but knowing Microsoft & their hardware partners, they will probably pitch notebooks with Snapdragon X Elite chips inside as high end premium hardware, then stand around scratching their arse wondering why no one's buying them.
For Windows on Arm devices to succeed, Microsoft firstly need to get developers on board to ensure their apps work natively and secondly the hardware needs to be priced low enough to force people to take a punt.
Microsoft will be releasing their first Surface devices with these chips inside during May, so it will be interesting how they market these machines and what they will price them at. Microsoft need Windows on Arm hardware to succeed, but knowing Microsoft & their hardware partners, they will probably pitch notebooks with Snapdragon X Elite chips inside as high end premium hardware, then stand around scratching their arse wondering why no one's buying them.
The surface laptops have the same eye strain problem for me as MacBooks. Almost seems as if they copied Apple, which turned out for the worse in this instance.
At least there are options from the other laptop makers.
What’s the eye strain problem? What causes it?
Eventually as the technology matures, they should bridge all these gaps - both ways, So Apple gets games that it lacks and Windows user gets efficiency that he misses
Apple hasn’t been using ARM’s reference designs for years. They just use the ISA.
Speculation is temporal dithering similar to what Apple does.
15” MBA — any reports on PWM, dithering, and eye or brain sensitivity?
On 6-bit, I doubt that any modern devices are still using 6-bit + FRC panels. Pretty sure it's either native 8-bit (with the signal being dithered at the OS/GPU level instead because of ColorSync, which is happening before being sent to the display) or 8-bit + 10-bit FRC nowadays. My symptoms...
forums.macrumors.com
"I wouldn't recommend a Surface as being Microsoft's own product, they probably do more deep integration between Windows and the hardware, possibly including more aggressive color management. I had a decent experience (compared to Mac) with a Surface in the past, but for some reason all Surface devices hide Intel graphics settings making things really difficult to control, like needing a registry key to disable Intel's annoying display power saving (adapative contrast that constantly washes everything out) instead of just checking a box like on other Windows PCs. I also had shimmery text issues but only under 50% brightness, so maybe there was PWM involved. It was still better than any Mac but this was also a really long time ago, so it's possibly even worse now, I honestly am not a big fan of Surface."
Well, Microsoft certainly disagrees with this if you read the article (better than Rosetta) and they have more information than anyone here on the new emulation with Windows 24H2. I guess we'll see, but if emulation is even just as good as Rosetta I can see Windows on Arm starting to become mainstream (with some developers eventually making native apps).
It’s great that the snapdragon X elite is faster than the M3… but comparing a SoC with 12 performance cores at 80W TDP to a SoC with 4performance cores and 4 efficiency cores with 20W TDP isn’t really a good look.
If they compare to the M3 pro which is a more even match the M3 pro is similar performance despite having lower TDP, efficiency cores and being released 8 months earlier. Don’t get me started on M3 Max which would be in the same TDP category.
Qualcomm should be proud, but I’m not rooting for them. I hope Nvidia can enter this space and really light the fires. QCOM is a closed system. That’s why most Android phones have almost exactly the same specs etc… they all use Qualcomm SoCs, with QCOM chargers and peripheral ICs.
If they compare to the M3 pro which is a more even match the M3 pro is similar performance despite having lower TDP, efficiency cores and being released 8 months earlier. Don’t get me started on M3 Max which would be in the same TDP category.
Qualcomm should be proud, but I’m not rooting for them. I hope Nvidia can enter this space and really light the fires. QCOM is a closed system. That’s why most Android phones have almost exactly the same specs etc… they all use Qualcomm SoCs, with QCOM chargers and peripheral ICs.
Yes! This. The Windows OS is the deciding factor here.
Apple had over a decade to refine ARM with OS X. MSFT is just trying to keep up here. Will the processor be faster? Maybe at a higher wattage, but it doesn't matter if the OS isn't ready.
If the differences aren't that apparent, it doesn't matter. You buy into an ecosystem, not specs.
if true, this would be the best news for Apple users since 2020 M1 and for Surface Pro user since SP2 2012.
Luckily for me, I'm both.
If only Apple released a full MacOS tablet with M3...
Luckily for me, I'm both.
If only Apple released a full MacOS tablet with M3...
That’s good you have a positive experience with Windows on Arm on Apple Silicon. My experience with Windows 10 or 11 with 8 GB of RAM was not positive. Granted, that was with an 8th gen Intel processor, but an upgrade to 32 GB of RAM from 8 GB on the same machine fixed the lagging issues.
I like Windows and use it on my primary computer. I just haven’t had good experiences with only 8 GB of RAM.
8 GB on macOS on Apple Silicon is much better. I still personally opt for 16+ GB but I used a base M1 Air for many months and had no issues. Maybe the Arm version of Windows is much more efficient.
Apple hasn't been picking up the all of the latest ISA updates. For example SVE2. Nested virtual machines . etc.
At this point Apple is incrementally drifting away from ARM ISA. The current intersection is high enough than stuff like Windows 11 (and its apps) still run, but 5-10 years down the road I wouldn't bet the farm that the contemporary update will.
Performance and efficiency curve is set by the node, not “design”. Apple “design” is mostly a marketing stunt. There’s actually very minimal or no benefit to the end user except making them think they’re getting a super special chip. The most important, hardest and intellectual part comes from manufacturing, not “design”.