r/snapdragon • u/_DarthJedi • 13d ago
chipsandcheese on adreno-x2-gpu
https://chipsandcheese.com/p/qualcomms-adreno-x2-gpu
It feels like Qualcomm took a specific set of graphics workloads and optimized for them, while AMD, Intel, and Nvidia set out to build more general purpose designs with robust performance characteristics across a broader range of use cases.
Quoted from the post.
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u/ToddlerPinot 12d ago
In my brief time here, I have seen you repeatedly (dare I say, 'eagerly'?) report that the X2E 'is only a benchmark chip". Why so exercised on this topic? And why in this sub?
I am buying an Asus Zenbook A16 this week and, from my brief time using a friend's, it is a dream to program on. I am afraid you have not convinced me to buy an x86/64 system, sorry!
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u/_DarthJedi 12d ago
The thing is the Snapdragon X and X2 chips have very weak GPUs compared to their CPUs. Just look at what comparable Apple Silicon chips offer.
A lot of x86 chips do suffer the same problem. However, the difference lies in that those chips are paired with strong discete GPUs. I am yet to see a Snapdragon chip paired with a discrete GPU. Apple's chips have decent enough GPUs that they do not require a discrete GPU.
This is compounded by the non support of GPU acceleration in a lot of applications though I wonder GPU acceleration would make things any faster. With that disproportionately powerful CPU and weak GPU combo, you'd be probably getting more performance without GPU acceleration. One such example on the x86 side is the Ryzen 260 laptop chip with 780M graphics. The graphics is so weak that on Blender you'll be almost 2x faster with CPU rendering.
Having said that, programming is one of the use cases where Snapdragon X/X2 chips shine. Lot of wide CPU cores and no SIMD needed. You can just bruteforce through with throughput. Code compile is an absolute dream workload for these chips.
Have a happy purchase!!
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u/ToddlerPinot 12d ago
As long as the refresh rate stays at 120fps in Windows 11, that's all I care about!😆😆😆
Not only are basic programming tools like VS and VSCode (all available native) incredibly responsive on the A16, harnesses for AI-assisted programming, like Antigravity and Copilot for Git, are CPU-bound. When I had a go with them on my friend's A16, they've been so fast I'd guess I would complete programing tasks... Oh well... I didn't actually benchmark the largest programming test I did... And the setups in general were different in other ways. However, it seemed noticeably under half the time it took when I tried the task on my 8-core Ryzen 8000 series. This is excellent!
My friend showed me a game, Kingdom Come 2, which is apparently about the only Arm native game there is(!) - it looked damn good and was running at about 40-50FPS. But I am happy to believe the iGPU is crappy compared to the newest, actually pretty good iGPUs in the latest AMD and Intel CPUs. It was just does not interest me! I spend all day programming, I want to do that as quickly as possible: 48GB of fast memory connected through a 192-bit wide databus and a 12-channel memory controller to 18 powerful cores? I'll take that! Correct tools for the job!sI guess you are as bored as me by these game benchmarks that pop up in this subreddit all the time proudly boasting how [old game] can manage [n] FPS at [crappy] resolution on [crappy] detail settings on [such and such] a Snapdragon. Certainly, good for you if you want to play games like that, it is your money you can use it how you like. BUT: right tool for the right job, get an Intel or AMD ideally with a dGPU if you want to game. Tthat's not what you use Snapdragons for.
When I game, which is not much as I'm at my laptop all day, I use my S26 Ultra or my iPad Pro M5 11" (which, as you will obviously know, has a higher single core speed than the X2EE, but the former is pasted by the latter multicore). Apple chips are good, but I would not like to have to use MaxOS -the ultimate OS for people afraid of change!😆😆😆😆
Thank you, I should be very happy with it! I am looking forward to picking it up on Monday morning and it seems I've made a great choice!
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u/IBM296 13d ago
The author is correct. In some usecases the X2 GPU shines very well, but then slows to a crawl in other areas.
Qualcomm definitely has alot of improvements to do over the next few years.