Qualcomm Looking to Combat Apple Silicon With New Generation of PC Chips

Tuesday November 16, 2021 9:02 am PST by Hartley Charlton

Qualcomm today announced plans for next-generation Arm-based System on Chips (SoC) designed to rival Apple's M-series chips in the PC space (via The Verge).

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At Qualcomm's 2021 investor day event, chief technology officer Dr. James Thompson announced the plans for the new generation of chips. The chips are "designed to set the performance benchmark for Windows PCs" and are being developed by the Nuvia team. Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, a chip startup company founded by former Apple chip designers, for $1.4 billion earlier this year.

Qualcomm said that it will directly compete with Apple's M-series chips, including the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max, and hopes to lead the industry for "sustained performance and battery life." Moreover, the company promised that it would be scaling up its Adreno GPUs to offer desktop-class gaming capabilities in future PCs. Qualcomm hopes to be able to send samples to clients in around nine months, ahead of the first products containing the chips launching in 2023.

Tags: Arm, Qualcomm

Top Rated Comments

BC2009

57 months ago

So if Apple maintains the same lead on Qualcomm in with regard to PC/Mac chips that they do in the mobile arena, then they have nothing to worry about. Qualcomm chips powering Android phones are at least 2 to 3 years behind Apple in performance and Android phones only make up for it by providing obscene amounts of RAM on the high-end phones.

The advantage here for the consumer is that it will prevent Apple from resting on their laurels and holding back more powerful designs because they don't yet need them (much like Intel did with AMD years ago). You gotta have somebody at least chasing after Apple even if they are likely not going to catch them. I actually wish Apple had more competition in the tablet arena so iPad might got better faster.

The other disadvantage for PC's is that the operating system is coming from a different vendor than the SOC. When Apple needs to optimizing something, they just push it from software to hardware. For Microsoft and Qualcomm, that is going to be a negotiation with a slower turn-around time.

Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)

torontotim

57 months ago

if only apple paid their designers better to retain them.

People working at this level rarely leave because of compensation.

Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)

SactoGuy18

57 months ago

They'll never catch up to Apple. Reason: the Apple M-series SoC's a highly optimized for MacOS, something that the Qualcomm ARM-based SoC's may not be able to do unless Windows 11 on ARM is written to take full advantage of the Qualcomm ARM design.

Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)