Qualcomm unveils new chip for Windows PCs

The new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chipset is built for always on, always connected PCs that are ultra-slim.

San Francisco: Chipmaker Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform as a successor of the 8cx Gen 2 model that was launched last year.

The new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chipset is built for always on, always connected PCs that are ultra-slim.

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“Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is a tremendous upgrade for consumers, businesses, organizations, and industries looking for powerful, efficient devices that are lightweight, ultraportable, and secure,” the firm said in a statement.

It comes with improved performance compared to the 7c Gen 2 as it boosts the CPU performance up to 60 per cent and the GPU performs 70 per cent faster. The NPU in the chipset comes with 6.5 TOPS of AI compute power which is an improvement as the NPU in the predecessor has 5 TOPS.

It supports 5G (sub-6 GHz and mmWave) and the Snapdragon X65 5G RF-Modem system delivers peak download speeds of up to 10 Gbps, up to 7.5 Gbps with the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF system, or up to 4.4 Gbps with the Snapdragon X62 5G Modem-RF system, and the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 system offers speeds up to 3.6 Gbps on Wi-Fi 6E.A

The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 comes with Qualcomm’s Hexagon processor along with the Qualcomm Sensing Hub for machine learning.

It supports a single camera up to 24MP, along with up to 4 concurrent cameras, and also has support for 4K HDR video capture at 30fps, slow motion 720p video at 480fps.

The new platform also comes with better support for AI driven features such as face detection or background blur and audio noise suppression.

Qualcomm has enabled the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 to support Microsoft Secured-core PCs. There is also a dedicated Computer Vision processor for continuous authentication.