When buying a new Windows laptop, one of your first decisions will be which processor you prefer.
You might think of this as a direct fight between Intel and AMD, but there is a third main option worth considering.
Qualcomm, a company known for its smartphone chips, has been manufacturing laptop equivalents since 2019. These ARM-based chipsets include both CPU and GPU components, and have already been included in devices from the likes of Microsoft, Samsung, and Lenovo.
A fourth release of the flagship Snapdragon 8cx compute platform isn’t likely for quite some time yet, but we already have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Here’s everything you need to know.
When will the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 laptops be released?
Qualcomm usually releases new flagship laptop chips towards the end of the year, but there are often more than 12 months between releases. Here’s when they’ve been announced in the past:
With no sign of that last year, it’s likely we’ll see the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 before the 2023 release. Besides the pandemic-hit year 2020, Qualcomm usually launches new products at an event in November. or December.
An announcement at the end of 2023 would therefore seem likely, but this is only a guess at this stage. Leaker Kuba Wojciechowski said in a that an upcoming ‘Hamoa’ chip will arrive in 2024 – it’s believed to be the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4.
Either way, the first Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 laptops probably won’t arrive until 2024.
Which laptops will use the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4?
It’s hard to say at this point, but it’s likely we’ll see updated models of all four devices that use the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. They are:
- Lenovo ThinkPad X13s
- Huawei MateBook E Go – Wi-Fi only model
- Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360
- Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (custom version ‘SQ3’)
The Windows 2023 SDK also uses the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, but it’s designed for a desktop setup and not intended for consumers.
Some of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 devices may also reappear:
- Acer Spin 7
- HP Elite Wallet
- Samsung Galaxy Book Go 5G
- Microsoft Surface Pro X (custom ‘SQ2’ version)
Besides the brands mentioned above, Asus is the only other company to have hinted at a partnership with Microsoft in the past. Hopefully the upgrades are compelling enough to attract more manufacturers.
What will the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 specs be?
There’s only one main source of information so far, but it reveals a lot. Leaker Kuba Wojciechowski claims to have received many key details about the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4, and there’s certainly plenty to unpack from his January 2023 Twitter feed:
Key takeaways include the most powerful chip equipped with eight performance cores and four efficiency cores. In internal tests, Qualcomm apparently gets clock speeds of 3.5 GHz (performance) and 2.5 GHz (efficiency) – but its maximum is likely to be significantly higher.
These 12 CPU cores are supposed to be divided into blocks of four, each having 12MB of L2 cache and 8MB of L3 cache. The total system cache apparently amounts to 12MB, while there is an additional 4MB for graphics output.
Wojciechowski says there will be support for up to 64GB of onboard DDR5 RAM. But there will supposedly be no upgrade to the integrated GPU – Adreno 740, the same used in the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2. However, the high-end 12-core version will also support discrete GPUs.
Qualcomm
In terms of connectivity, the 8cx Gen 4 will supposedly be updated to the new Wi-Fi 7 standard. It should be available at some point in 2023, ahead of the initial schedule of early 2024.
Remember that this is the only source of information we have at this time. Wojciechowski has a decent track record when it comes to leaks, but that doesn’t mean everything mentioned will make it into the final product.
The only thing we can be pretty sure of is 5G support, but an upgrade to the 8cx Gen 3’s Bluetooth 5.1 would make sense. Bluetooth 5.4 is expected sometime in 2023, but Qualcomm could opt for the current 5.3 instead.
We’ll update this article one more time on the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4. For information on Qualcomm’s upcoming mobile chipset, check out our Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 guide.
