Qualcomm’s first real PC chip is starting to take shape. A new leak for the SoC, which is being developed under the code name “Hamoa”, now reveals details such as the clock rate of the chip, which is equipped with a total of twelve computing cores and is intended to scare Apple.
The developer and reverse engineer Kuba Wojciechowski has once again published extensive information on Twitter about the first commercial chip that the team at the start-up Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired a few years ago, is developing. The chip, touted as the answer to Apple’s M-Series SoCs, could finally make Windows on ARM devices a viable alternative.
Up to 3.4 gigahertz maximum clock rate
According to earlier reports, the SC8380’s 12 cores, as the model number of the “Hamoa” SoC reads, should work at up to 3.4 gigahertz, according to Wojciechowski’s information. Four of the cores will run as “Efficient” cores with a maximum of 2.5 gigahertz, while the other eight can reach the peak clock of around 3.4 GHz.
Three blocks of four CPU cores each are used, each with 12 megabytes of shared L2 cache. In addition, there is a whole eight megabytes of L3 cache, which all cores use together. There is also 12 megabytes of system-level cache and another four megabytes of cache for graphics tasks.
Up to 64 gigabytes of RAM possible
According to Wojciechowski, “Hamoa” supports up to 64 gigabytes of 8-channel LPDDR5x RAM, which can use “additional low-power features” and is said to run at up to 4200 megahertz. The chip’s graphics unit is the Adreno 740, which is also used in the current Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for smartphones. Qualcomm reportedly wants to offer support for DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL and DirectML.
Since the mobile GPU from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in the SC8380 is probably not sufficient for demanding graphics display in desktop operation, the “Hamoa” SoC in the 12-core version also has eight PCIe 4.0 lanes, via which an additional graphics card is connected can be used. According to Wojciechowski, it can be assumed that
PC-typical support for various connections
Also on board are allegedly four PCIe 4.0 lanes for NVMe SSDs that can also be configured as 2×2, as well as some PCIe 3.0 lanes for the use of external WLAN and mobile network cards. The SoC itself also comes with support for WiFi 7 ex works, although Qualcomm recommends using an external cellular modem such as the Snapdragon X65 for 5G Internet.
Qualcomm also gives its new desktop SoC a UFS 4.0 controller with support for SSDs of up to one terabyte. There is also a Hexagon Tensor processor that has been greatly improved in terms of performance, which is said to deliver significantly more power for AI tasks.
In order to make the new SoC usable for use in PCs and laptops, Qualcomm also integrates the option of connecting various external devices. Up to two USB 3.1 10 Gpbs ports and three Thunderbolt 4 capable USB 4 ports including DisplayPort 1.4a support. In this way, various external displays can be connected, whereby up to one 5K and two 4K panels can be addressed at the same time.
It will be a while before we find “Hamoa” in finished devices, even though Qualcomm recently spoke of the availability of the first devices in 2023 when presenting the custom computing cores used here with the marketing name “Oryon”. In view of the high prices of laptops with the current Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, however, it is to be feared that the finished devices that will then appear will be anything but cheap.
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