Qualcomm eyes to take on Apple’s M series chips with Snapdragon X

Qualcomm has a new chip coming, the Snapdragon X – the next generation of ARM-based processors for PCs, taking on Apple’s M series chips.
“2024 will be an inflection point for the PC industry, and Snapdragon X compute platforms will deliver next-level performance, AI, connectivity, and battery life,” said Qualcomm, announcing the new nomenclature.
The last time Qualcomm unveiled chips for PCs was in 2018 when it brought the Snapdragon 8Cx compute platform.
Qualcomm's new naming convention and design for PC platforms was arrived at after conducting thorough analysis, gathering consumer input and feedback from the PC industry. The approach involves using the X Identifier to distinguish PC platforms, a premium design, and a simplified tiering structure that assists users in understanding platform capabilities. The naming convention also leverages Snapdragon's global brand equity.
The company says that the “Snapdragon X series platform is built on our years of experience engineering heterogeneous compute architectures across the central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and NPU.” The chips will bring the Oryon CPUs, announced last year. The new CPU should bring major gains in performance and efficiency, according to the company. The NPU will deliver on-device processing for generative AI applications. The new chip is also said to bring 5G connectivity.
The Oryon CPU is based on the technology from Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired in 2021. The company's founder includes former Apple engineers who had worked on the A-series iPhone and iPad chips before.
Qualcomm has been testing the new ARM chips for PCs, codenamed Hamoa, for a while now. The chipset is expected to feature a 12-core Oryon CPU, with 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. It may come with an integrated Adreno 740 GPU, and larger devices may support NVMe storage. Hamoa-powered devices could compete with iPads and are expected to be released in 2024.
Qualcomm has scheduled the Snapdragon Summit scheduled for October 24-26, where it is expected to announce the Snapdragon X series alongside the other new chips. The company said it will also announce a new design system for its products.