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 Last fall, Qualcomm revealed a major upgrade for its laptop chips with the Snapdragon X Elite. And while we're still waiting for those processors to make their way into retail devices, today Qualcomm is expanding the line with the Snapdragon X Plus, which I had a chance to test out ahead of its arrival on gadgets later this year.
Similar to the X Elite, the X Plus is based on the same 4nm process and Arm-based Oryon CPU architecture as its sibling. The difference is that the new chip is meant to be used in slightly more affordable mainstream laptops, and as such it only has 10 CPU cores (vs 12 for the X Elite) and reduced clock speeds (3.4Ghz vs 3.8Ghz for the X Elite). This positioning is a lot like what Qualcomm's rivals have been doing for a while, with the X Elite serving as the flagship chip (like Intel's Core Ultra 9 series) and the X Plus sitting just below that (which would be equivalent to the Core Ultra 7 line).
Qualcomm
However, one thing that hasn't changed is that just like the X Elite, the X Plus' Hexagon NPU puts out the same 45 TOPS of mach
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 It's a classic Elon Musk move. Tesla released some pretty grim first-quarter numbers on Tuesday, showing that net income dropped more than 50% from last year. During the earnings call, however, Musk floated his "new" vision for the electric car company. Tesla is now focused on building an AI-powered fleet of…
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Let's face it: Processor naming schemes have become ridiculously complex. AMD launched its with an actual decoder ring, and the names still don't make sense. But Intel began this nonsense more than five years ago, when trying to figure out what the 10th-gen Core chip names meant necessitated its own story.
Now it's Qualcomm's turn. And boy, is it a doozy. (Qualcomm also released a list of the four Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors, complete with names and clock speeds — which it hasn't done before. Unfortunately, before we list those, we have to explain what the names and numbers mean. We apologize in advance. Take note of the similarity to the name of Elon Musk and singer Grimes' child: X Æ A-12.)
How to talk about the Snapdragon X Series to your teens
Let's face it: The Snapdragon X1E-78-100 will never be mentioned in polite society. It will not appear in a sonnet, or in a card you send to your spouse for your anniversary. If it is ever mentioned that evening, it will be in
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 Best Buy this week has steep $100 discounts on every M1 iPad Air model, with prices starting at $499.99 for the 64GB Wi-Fi tablet. These deals follow in the wake of Apple's announcement of an event coming in May, which is expected to include refreshed iPad Air models with M2 chips.
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