Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx vs Apple M3 Pro 12-Core vs Microsoft SQ1

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform (or SD8cx) is a ARM based SoC for Windows laptops. It integrates a similar CPU part as the Snapdragon 855 (same cores but without the Prime Core feature) and is manufactured in 7nm at TSMC. The 4 Kryo 495 Gold cores are based on the ARM Cortex-A76 architecture (for performance) and clocked at 2.84 GHz under load (no single core Turbo). The 4 Kryo 495 Silver cores are small ARM Cortex-A55 cores for power efficiency and clocked at 1.9 GHz under load. According to Qualcomm, the clock speed should not be reduced under constant load with typical (fanless) cooling. The integrated X24 LTE modem supports up to 2 Gbps download speeds. Furthermore, the SoC integrates ac-Wifi and a dual-channel 32-bit 1866 MHz LPDDR4x memory controller.

The processor performance should be similar to a Intel Core i5 8th gen U-series (e.g. i5-8250U) according to Qualcomm. However, this is only the case for native ARM64 compiled Windows apps which are not that many (in mid 2019). 32 bit applications and games for AMD/Intel run in a rather slow emulation and 64 bit apps wont start at all (but an emulator should come in Windows in 2021).

The integrated Adreno 680 graphics card is a beefier version of the Adreno 640 in the Snapdragon 855 and should be twice as fast as the old Adreno 630 (in Windows laptops) and offer a 60% higher efficiency.

The chip is very power efficient as its produced at Samsung in the modern 7 nm process (7LPP). Therefore, laptops using the Snapdragon 8cx can be passively cooled (no fan) and should not throttle under constant load.

Apple M3 Pro 12-Core

The Apple M3 Pro (12 Core) is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple for notebooks that was launched in late 2023. It integrates a new 12-core CPU with 6 performance cores with up to 4.06 GHz and 6 efficiency cores with 2.8 GHz. There is also a slimmed-down 11-core variant with a 14-core GPU.

Compared to the M2 Pro the M3 Pro has been slimmed down somewhat and swaps two performance cores for efficiency cores. This is due to the changed core configuration, as 6 cores are now used per cluster (the M2 Pro and M3 still have 4 cores per cluster). Furthermore, the memory bus has been reduced from 256 bits to 192 bits (150 GB/s vs. 200 GB/s). However, thanks to the new architecture and higher clock rates, the new M3 Pro is still slightly faster.

The M3 Pro also integrates a new graphics card with dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration via hardware. In the top model, all 18 cores of the chip are used and support up to 3 displays simultaneously (internal and 2 external).

GPU and CPU can jointly access the shared memory on the package (unified memory). This is available in 18 or 36 GB variants and offers 150 GB/s maximum bandwidth (192 bit bus).

The integrated 16-core Neural Engine has also been revised and now offers 18 TOPS peak performance (compared to 15.8 TOPS in the M2 but 35 TOPS in the new A17 Pro). The video engine now also supports AV1 decoding in hardware. H.264, HEVC and ProRes (RAW) can still be decoded and encoded.

Unfortunately, the integrated WLAN only continues to support WiFi 6E (no WiFi 7), unlike the small M3 SoC thunderbolt 4 is also supported (max 40 Gbit/s).

The chip is manufactured in the current 3nm process (N3B) at TSMC and contains 37 billion transistors (-7.5% vs. Apple M2 Pro).

Microsoft SQ1

The Microsoft SQ1 is a ARM based SoC for Windows tablets (Surface Pro X). It is based on the Snapdragon 8cx but with higher clocked CPU and GPU cores. The CPU cores clock with up to 3 GHz. The 4 Kryo 495 Gold cores are based on the ARM Cortex-A76 architecture (for performance) and clocked at up to 3 GHz (2.84 GHz  for the 8cx) under load (no single core Turbo). The 4 Kryo 495 Silver cores are small ARM Cortex-A55 cores for power efficiency and clocked at 1.9 GHz (unverified) under load. The integrated X24 LTE modem supports up to 2 Gbps download speeds. Furthermore, the SoC integrates ac-Wifi and a dual-channel 32-bit 1866 MHz LPDDR4x memory controller.

The processor performance should be similar to a Intel Core i5 8th gen U-series (e.g. i5-8250U) according to Qualcomm. However, this is only the case for native ARM64 compiled Windows apps which are not that many (in mid 2019). 32 bit applications and games for AMD/Intel run in a rather slow emulation and 65 bit apps wont start at all.

The integrated Adreno 685 graphics card is a higher clocked version of the Adreno 680 in the Snapdragon 8cx. Microsoft claims 2 TFlops theoretical performance compared to the 1.8 for the Adreno 680 (+11%).

The chip is very power efficient as its produced at TSMC in the modern 7 process. Therefore, laptops using the Snapdragon 8cx can be passively cooled (no fan) and should not throttle under constant load.