Next week the Snapdragon Summit 2021 will begin, an event in which Qualcomm is expected to announce important news from its division of SoCs for mobile phones. Also, news is expected on the rumored Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 , which would be the brand's next chip for Windows 11 laptops.
This chip, remember, has a remarkable importance given the current situation. Following Apple's validation of the ARM architecture in computers, many have put the spotlight on Qualcomm , hoping that it will become the equivalent of Intel in the PC world. That is to say: that it is the default provider of all those manufacturers that want to launch products with a processor of this architecture.
This long-awaited chip, however, could be insufficient in the battle with Apple's M1s, despite hitting the market a year later. In the test history of Geekbench 5, a well-known benchmark, a new entry has appeared supposedly corresponding to a Lenovo computer with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 . The recorded scores are 1010 in the single-core test and 5335 in the multicore test, figures that are far from the 1700 and 7400 obtained by a MacBook Air with an M1 processor, respectively.
The positive part is that this chip would be in the same league as an Intel Core i7-1185G7 , present in computers like Microsoft's Surface Pro 8. In other words, it could compete with one of Intel's most popular laptop processors.
To put the supposed scores of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 in context, this would be compared to other chips:
The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is not enough for Qualcomm
If this data is real, Qualcomm is probably aware that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is not enough for the future . The company, in fact, bought a startup known as Nuvia with the aim of boosting its computer chip division, but the fruits take a while to emerge. Qualcomm hopes to be able to face Apple throughout 2023.
On the other hand, another factor to take into account is that the comparisons, in addition to Apple's M1, we are doing with the 11th generation Intel processors , which will soon be replaced by the 12th generation. Of this new family, at the moment, we only know the chips focused on desktop computers, but it is likely that we will soon have news about the versions for laptops. It will be with those chips that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 actually has to compete with.
And finally, another factor to take into account is that Geekbench only tells part of the story . One of the virtues of the ARM architecture is energy efficiency, generally superior to that of x86 chips. Therefore, if future devices with Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 do not match or outperform the Intel equivalents, it is possible that they will beat them in terms of autonomy or portability (since they do not require a fan).
