alekhkhanna
Herald
Depends on industry. Can’t generalise.
Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite - looks like the Windows world’s answer to Apple Silicon
- Thread starter gourav
- Start date
desiibond
Juggernaut
This is from my experience of working in
Cisco
Wipro
Concentrix
Texas Instruments
Standard Chartered
I am not generalizing. While startups splurge on expensive laptops/Macbooks, majority of corporates keep hardware costs low. For companies that are there for long time, MS integration is a must. I never see these companies try something new or be early adopter. Throughout these 20 years or so, I used laptops that are around 70k-80k (mostly Dells and Thinkpads). Some wont even spend more than 50k. Many non-remote-working industries still rely on desktops. There are many of my friend's spouses (in non-IT) who got desktops delivered to their home during Covid (administrative sector in various industries).
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yep, it was around the 10th gen when M1 was released? it was one of the crappiest gens in laptop space, what with a below par performance increase and increased thermal issues. Seeing AMD eating up their market share and the popularity of M1 lit a fire under their asses.
what ARM/SD should instead do is target Linux users, instead of focusing on WoA, and they dont even need to do much, just release open source firmware for their chips, its been a while since any AMD/Intel have done it (last I remember it was during the core 2 duo days), that in of itself would massively increase SD's adoption, getting all the benefits for ARM on linux is a wet dream for me, we would finally get decent battery life if this happens along with perf.
Linux on laptops is actually pretty crap to run, what with driver issues, shortcuts not working and not getting even passable battery backup.
definitely, its only devs who get the new shiny shit, and thats because Apple is not the best at supporting older hardware and the fact MacOS is UNIX based and might as well be linux for all the things that matters practically along with support for software like MDMs which is a must for any big corpo.
How does it compare to the Apple M Series chips? Looks like somewhere between M3 and M3 Pro? Not a bad starting point. I wonder if dedicated GPUs can give these windows arm machines an edge over macbooks. This snapdragon chip with say an nvidia rtx 4070m say would make for a very capable machine in a good package.
KAKAN
Explorer
Intel and AMD have closed source components, for sure, but they're much more open than Qualcomm in general. The part that got closed source after core2duo iirc are the boot firmware things? Or Intel ME, not sure. But overall, they're both much bigger contributors and generally have a lot of open-source support.
Not sure about what laptops you use, but I usually get over 6h of battery life in mine (Ideapad Flex 5) with usually full brightness. Windows' gets under 4h, though. Not saying linux has better battery support, or that the laptop lasts long, just saying that it's actually good enough battery backup for me. As for driver issues, it actually worked better than Windows' OOTB, except for the fingerprint driver which has no support at all (blame Goodix for that, I guess).
I don't think Qualcomm will openly support Linux though? They're very closed and hostile to FOSS from what I've heard. I expect Intel and AMD to continue being the linux-platform for consumer laptop users wanting to run Linux.
I'll see how the situation plays out, tbh. I expect newer AMD and Intel chips to last even longer (hopefully this Elite X release makes them even more competitive), and at that point, maybe I'll consider buying another laptop with x86. Unless, of course, Qualcomm has a change of heart and has embraced Linux and FOSS.
Though, my view might be biased. My thinking of Qualcomm hating on FOSS is back from like 2021 or some. I don't have any Qualcomm device that still gets proper kernel updates after 2 years or so. Meanwhile, my 12-yr old Intel CPU still gets support, and even older AMD GPU recently got Vulkan support. That's the kind of thing I really like, and Qualcomm really doesn't do anything to make me trust them on that note.
admittedly its been a while since I used linux on a laptop so things would definitely have changed, plus it depends from OEM to OEM, lenovo has an excellent track record when it comes to support for linux,
oh I know, its just my wishful thinking, but honestly thats probably the only way they can breakthrough for consumers, Microsoft will keep being microsoft until push comes to a shove and judging by the current state of WoA and the popularity of Asahi, I bet there will be many (including me) who'll jump on the SD bandwagon in a heartbeat.
I'm not aware of anything that Qualcomm has done which is against FOSS so I'll take your word for it, as for kernel updates, Qualcomm has up till now been focused majorly on mobile devices, there's no point releasing kernel updates for them when the OEM itself wont even bother to update them, unless you are talking about their earlier attempt to bring ARM to laptops.
Qualcomm just posted patches to Linux kernel for Adreno X1-85 GPU used in SD Elite.
This seems really promising to me ngl
This seems really promising to me ngl
Yeah I follow Phoronix which has regular updates in Linux/open source world... See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-Adreno-X1-85-GPU-Linux
desiibond
Juggernaut
Absolute clickbait. He straightaway said that WOA is really bad for development. Then he pulls a game dev and talks about gaming on ARM. On the other hand, I have seen couple of videos where devs showed how they are able to use their usual dev tools and compile various types of projects (java, JS), how they are able to run Ubuntu through WSL, how they are able to even run docker containers.
I do not understand why people love to take the lead in killing a product, especially when that product has massive potential. Buggers forgot how bad the M1 air was during the first year and how Apple did not even release an Apple silicon Macbook Pro till most developers onboarded.
PS: IT (level1tech) should stick to IT and talk about repair and level 1 tech issues, leave development talk to devtubers.
microsoft being microsoft, who's surprised at this? I'll say it again, SD should go all in on Linux support until Microsoft gets their shit together which wont be anytime soon. Dunno about others, me and the peeps in my circle are all just waiting to see how much SD is gonna support Linux before pulling the trigger on an Elite Laptop. performance in general has been on par with M2s at the very minimum and for me, this is all I need for my dev needs
wasnt the pro released almost 6-7 months down the line? I still think we should give SD atleast 6 months before deciding its worth it or not, but SD is a victim of their own marketing, they hyped Elite X way too much
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desiibond
Juggernaut
Here is a video where there is less talk and more demo
Clearly, Microsoft and Qualcomm targeted wrong consumer group at launch.
Yeah. They overhyped. They should have been realistic and say 'we are targeting dev and always-on-the-go community first and will come to gaming later'. What they created is a bloody good platform for development. What did they do when the devices were ready for launch? Gave them to influencers who does not even know how to write a 'Hello World' program. All that these buggers are doing is running some benchmarks, some photoshop editing some gaming. Why would any home user with right state of mind buy a 1.2L rupee laptop just for browsing and some rendering?
Clearly, Microsoft and Qualcomm targeted wrong consumer group at launch.
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yeah, they should have targeted one niche at a time, they were way too greedy and targeted them all and this is the result, idiots comparing gaming performance against X86 arch and battery life and general power efficiency against M series, of course they would lose, its like going against the strengths of each side.
There are way too many open-source nuts like me who would have happily shifted to Arm if SD had targeted us and linux in general, once you get the devs on board, its easier to get general productivity users on board too, we will fix shit that OEMs wont do or atleast have workarounds for them.
They have been releasing patches for the newer Linux kernel but its gonna take a lot of time before its released to LTS, both Microsoft and SD need to buckle up and start releasing updates asap and get those idiotic OEMs like Samsung to fix their shit because its honestly looking like a joke now.
He's talking mostly about Windows and Windows ecosystem development which is bad, and I agree, having suffered through it myself
All the "outside" stuff, like Java and other "open" platforms like web dev, WSL/ubuntu stuff is pretty good I agree.
I'm also looking forward for Linux maturity on this hardware platform but might have to wait for 2nd gen products for Linux to catch up - hope I'm wrong though.
I also really want some in-depth review/analysis of the PRISM emulation tech and perf - so who will be the first to do this?
.
BTW is docker on WSL still "fake news" ? Meaning, does it run Hyper-V based VMs instead of the intended lightweight containers using Linux cgroups thingy?
I remember recently reading (on Phoronix I guess) that MS will soon upgrade the WSL2 kernel from 5.15 LTS to 6.6 LTS so looking forward to what improvements (and bugs?) that brings.
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Pat
Forerunner
Factually incorrect. Both the Macbook Air M1 and 13 inch Macbook Pro M1 were announced and released at the same time (late 2020)
desiibond
Juggernaut
There is no doubt Microsoft poured lot of money into this. Qualcomm not having stable linux drivers at launch is deliberate I believe. And it has to do with Microsoft pulling strings. There is no way they could not have achieved Linux compatibility, given that the FOSS community is extremely strong. At the same time, WSL working well proves that MS wants you to use Windows to use Linux. This is the same thing that Apple too is doing (they do not want to see another OS to run natively on their hardware).
Same here. I really want to do extensive testing on an X Elite laptop. Would have bought one if I did not splurge so much on Apple ecosystem (current laptop is a year old). And yes, even with current x86 windows ,I hate working on MS platforms. Hate it to the core. Do not know why even to this day, they are 'do everything in UI, **** automation'. It is really really hard to write automations for MSD solution deployments (Dynamics, power platform etc). Their API responses/data is all over the place.He's talking mostly about Windows and Windows ecosystem development which is bad, and I agree, having suffered through it myself
All the "outside" stuff, like Java and other "open" platforms like web dev, WSL/ubuntu stuff is pretty good I agree.
I'm also looking forward for Linux maturity on this hardware platform but might have to wait for 2nd gen products for Linux to catch up - hope I'm wrong though.
I also really want some in-depth review/analysis of the PRISM emulation tech and perf - so who will be the first to do this?
.
Announcing Docker Desktop Support for Windows on Arm | Docker
Docker Desktop now supports running on Windows on Arm (WoA) devices. With this integration, Docker Desktop extends its reach to a new wave of hardware architectures, broadening the horizons for containerized application development.
www.docker.com
From wiki:
Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), also known as nested paging, is a hardware-assisted virtualization technology which makes it possible to avoid the overhead associated with software-managed shadow page tables.
ARM's virtualization extensions support SLAT, known as Stage-2 page-tables provided by a Stage-2 MMU. The guest uses the Stage-1 MMU. Support was added as optional in the ARMv7ve architecture and is also supported in the ARMv8 (32-bit and 64-bit) architectures.
Sorry, non-pro M silicon Macs, though they are tagged as MBP are not MBP. They are just MBAs with a fan (holds true to this day). I was refering to Pro silicon MBPs. Many of my friends who are app developers waited for M1 Pro MacBook Pro to shift. I shifted only after M2 pro came out. There was this one guy who got the M1 Air. It was bad for development. Lot of apps did not work or had lot of issues, unlike what influencers said that time.
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superczar
Juggernaut
I dont know whether its as bad as he makes it out to be but he struck a chord with me on his point around start menu going to the internet.
To me, the biggest pain with windows remains with linear path execution with non essential items sitting on the critical path.
I mean dont get me wrong, I am not a security/ privacy fanatic.
But it bugs me no end (for example) when simple things get stuck because the OS wants to check for 20 things in the background and also make them essential checks.
(eg Resume a PC from sleep and waiting till the network stack can call home and confirm to the rest of the system that the network is up - while the network is actually up but you have to wait till the previous process gets over)
I was really hoping for WoA to be a less convoluted experience that gets back to the basics and gets them right.
desiibond
Juggernaut
There are issues with Windows 11 across architectures, then there are problems with Windows 11 exclusively on ARM. The only thing that he talked about for 30 minutes back and forth is gaming. There is no way a 40W chip that includes cpu, gpu, memory, neural engine etc can match performance of Windows gaming laptops in its first gen. Thats just not possible. Look at Intel Arc. i just do not understand why he was speaking so much about gaming!!!! Forget about Qualcomm's claims. He should have talked about the laptops the way it is without falling for external things.
The issues he mentioned outside of gaming like Windows Store, Startmenu. They are the same for both x86 and ARM platforms. Those are common issues with Windows. It has nothing to do with ARM.
I dont know who is the bigger idiot. Qualcomms execs who do not have a clue what the product target buyers must be or this level1tech guy who thinks gaming is the only benchmark in the world.
Looks like that is not the case now. These things boot bloody fast. I think it has to do with Qualcomm handling some of the weightlifting during bootup.
superczar
Juggernaut
Yeah - I was kinda hoping that the older issues get sorted out in the rewrite.
TBH i do not care about gaming on windows - not that I dont use it but I am happy to use consoles exclusively if it results in better focus on other core bits
Hopefully - i know that I will want to get a WoA machine anyway but at the moment, it appears that I will defer it to the next gen