Qualcomm To Challenge Intel In PC Market With Snapdragon 1000

Qualcomm has been working with Microsoft on Always Connected PCs that are powered by its Snapdragon chips, however, they have largely been repurposed iterations of its mobile chips. A new report suggests that the company is now developing a new chip called the Snapdragon 1000 which will enable it to better compete against Intel in the PC market. Some details of the Snapdragon 1000 have emerged, which is said to have been purpose-built for PCs, and will compete against Intel’s low-end Y- and U-series Core processors.

The report mentions that the Snapdragon 1000 will be larger than Qualcomm’s previous chips that it has supplied for Always Connected PCs. It will use ARM’s new Cortex-A76 architecture to deliver performance improvements while remaining power efficient. It will apparently draw 12W of power for the entire SoC.

Qualcomm has reportedly developed a test platform based on the Snapdragon 1000 with up to 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM and two 128GB memory modules connected through UFS 2.1. The platform also features Gigabit WLAN and a new power management chip for enhanced efficiency.

If the report is accurate, the Snapdragon 1000 will be the first SoC from Qualcomm that’s built from the ground up for PCs. Whether or not these purpose-built chips will be able to give Intel a run for their money remains to be seen. Qualcomm hasn’t confirmed or denied anything about the Snapdragon 1000 just yet.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Computers
Tags: Qualcomm, Snapdragon 1000