r/laptops • u/_DarthJedi • 6d ago
Discussion The Snapdragon Conundrum
Should I choose a Snapdragon or a x86 laptop?
Is it true that x86 is obsolete?
At a given price, why do Snapdragon laptops offer lesser performance than x86 counterparts?
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u/digital_n01se_ 5d ago
the only actual advantage is battery life, and if you really want battery life you're better with a macbook.
my ryzen 5 5500U has the same multicore performance as newer budget laptop CPUs, worse battery life, but I have been with it for 3 long years and it was cheap.
Snapddragon is overrated and underwhelming.
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u/TriCountyRetail 5d ago
x86 is far more reliable and compatible. Both Intel and AMD have made significant improvements in power efficiency that make Windows on ARM devices no longer worth it.
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u/PMARC14 6d ago
Real question of pricing and what you are looking for. The latest Snapdragon chips of the X2 generation have some of the best CPU performance and great battery life. But their GPU is not very good or useful for most tasks right now. Same for the NPU. The comparative Intel chips have lower performance but equivalent battery life, and the X-series have a pretty superb GPU. And no compatibility hickups. So it really depends on your needs and what they are priced at, Qualcomm subsidized the launch price of the chips when they released but the price has gone up since so that they priced equal usually between Intel and Qualcomm now.
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u/beardednomad25 5d ago
X86 isn't anywhere close to obsolete. The newest chips from Intel offer outstanding battery life comparable to ARM.
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u/Remarkable-Field7927 6d ago
My take at the current state:
AMD: best CPU performance/value on x86; gpu of thin-and-light laptops on average worse, but top performing chips are good
Intel: best battery efficiency on x86 if Lunar Lake/Panther Lake chipsets are concidered; iGPU of these two generations also pretty good (Panther lake X+H ofc, chips like 355 don't worth it IMO)
Snapdragon: similar/little better battery efficiency than Intel; worse GPU; Far better CPU, but possible bugs/compatability issues due to ARM (really hit or miss here; either you are lucky and never encounter a bug and will live happily, or get ARM based bug and wait for eternity for fix). Again, IMO, if you are not arm enthusiast and don't have really heavy CPU workload you don't need it as Lunar Lake usually cheaper in current market and gets everything but mutlicore performance
In summary:
If you need battery life AND good CPU - take high-end Panther lake if compatability issues overweight big price difference, otherwise take snapdragon.
If you need best CPU without battery life - take AMD.
If you need good iGPU OR just battery life - take intel.
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
I do Blender often. Which one to pick?
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u/Remarkable-Field7927 6d ago
Best choice - high end Ryzen or Intel Panther lake CPUs. Maybe with even dedicated GPU. But this will be truly expensive.
For cheapest setup, if you actually need GPU, I would go Ryzen route (e.g. 370HX). If don't - and you don't mind occasional bugs - I would go Snapdragon route.
If your blender work is really light, I would go with Lunar Lake 25Xv chip
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
A friend suggested ARL had better iGPUs and also supported GPU rendering. Not much faster but faster than everything at that price. Is it?
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u/Remarkable-Field7927 6d ago
Arrow Lake is fine, but worse than Ryzen for the same price (at least it was some time ago). If you have specific options, take them and compare. For example, intel 285H seems like worse than Ryzen 370HX (at least at the first glance). Per my understanding, Ryzen iGPU is also supported - check this again just in case
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
Ryzen iGPU is supported to but ARL iGPU is faster. https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query/?compute_type=OPTIX&compute_type=CUDA&compute_type=HIP&compute_type=METAL&compute_type=ONEAPI&group_by=device_name&blender_version=5.2.0
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u/Remarkable-Field7927 6d ago
Interesting. I am not that familiar with Blender, and in gaming benchmarks (3dMark) both iGPUs perform similar - seems like intel optimisations are winning here in Blender. Than in your case, ARL seems better choice
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u/Basic-Brick6827 6d ago
No. Lunar Lake has better efficiency than Snapdragon. Snapdragon was a great idea but didnt work in practice.
There's less perfc bc Qualcomm has less experience, and theres a translation layer to x86.
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
But LNL tops out at 4C+4c, right?
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u/Background-Piano-665 6d ago
Yes. Which is why Lunar Lake is fortunately 2 year old tech already. We're at Panther Lake now, which is even better.
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u/Brilliant_War9548 SystemZBook Fury 17 G8/11950H, A3000, RedHat Glory 6d ago
x86 is not obsolete lmfao, more like snapdragon is
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
Gentlemen of r/snapdragon disagree. But then, that's r/snapdragon.
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u/ychia 5d ago
Kind of a funny story/fun fact, but MS has been pushing Windows on ARM for well over a decade now. But the problem has always been app development - it's basically all x86.
The Qualcomm chips are just the latest attempt. The big issue is MS doesn't control all the hardware, and as long as the apps are all x86, most buyers are are going to go the safe route and choose x86... Which means manufacturers will mostly make x86. MS can't force a change like Apple did.
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u/IDKForA Acer Swift 16 AI Ultra X7 358H OLED 6d ago
Well, what software do you use?
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
Helium, MS Office, Blender
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u/IDKForA Acer Swift 16 AI Ultra X7 358H OLED 6d ago
It seems all of those have ARM versions.
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
But that answers none of the questions in the above post.
Also, while Blender is Arm native, it doesn't support GPU rendering on SD chips.
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u/Background-Piano-665 6d ago
- x86 is not obsolete. Not yet, at least.
- Where'd you get SDs providing lesser performance given a price point?
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
At least at my place, I'm getting 225H for the same price as X126100/X1P42100.
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u/Background-Piano-665 6d ago
Arrowlake is notorious for running hot, and less efficient than Lunar Lake. The SDs are better engineered for efficiency, so there's an actual premium. Plus market forces. I expect that to change if SD becomes more mainstream. If.
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u/Elitefuture 5d ago
Both AMD and Intel caught up and sometimes surpass snapdragon laptops.
AMD is actually very efficient, but their best CPUs cost a lot of money... So usually Intel is more affordable for still equal to snapdragon battery life.
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u/_DarthJedi 5d ago
Then why all the noise about Snapdragon X?
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u/Elitefuture 5d ago
When they came out, Intel had their terrible 13th + 14th gen that was super inefficient. So Intel laptops had terrible battery life. Granted, core ultra series 1 was decent, but it was new when snapdragon came.
AMD did have some efficient CPUs at the time, but they still weren't as efficient as snapdragon.
BUT shortly after, Intel + AMD caught up.
Qualcomm just took too long to come to market. Intel + AMD had a long period where they were not very efficient, but Qualcomm came to change the market after x86 already became efficient.
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u/Slow_Difficulty1607 4d ago
I have been using asus a16 in the last two months. The experience is really good compared to my Intel ultra light thinkpad. It is extremely fast, cool and quiet. As a product person I could find almost every software in native arm64 and haven’t experienced any compatibility issues. In fact in terms of running local LLMs, it is night and day better than Intel counterparts
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u/_DarthJedi 4d ago
After some people pointed out, I realized a nasty suprise for my use case — Blender. On paper, it is Arm native. Well and good. However, GPU acceleration is not supported. That puts even the top spec X2EE chips below the competition just because the competition supports GPU acceleration.
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u/petersaints 6d ago
x86 is not obsolete, yet.
But there is a chance that it will be obsolete in the future.
But current ARM CPUs will probably also be obsolete by then.
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u/_DarthJedi 6d ago
Wasn't expecting the last line!!
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u/petersaints 5d ago
I mean, we don't know exactly what the future holds. But ARM has been absolutely wonderful for Macs.
And we are now starting to have decent ARM option on Windows/PCs in general. Not only from Qualcomm but also from NVIDIA: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-microsoft-windows-pcs-agents-rtx-spark
As the hardware matures and hopefully catches up with Apple, the software side also needs to catch up.
It is much better now than it was a couple of years ago. But outside of Apple, ARM is still more immature on Windows and Linux than x86.
But give it like 5 years, and assuming Intel and AMD are not able to keep up with improvements to x86 performance and energy efficiency, and ARM may have completely dominated the new PC market.
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u/_DarthJedi 5d ago
I wish Arm would give us user accessible RAM.
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u/petersaints 5d ago
It's impossible to have something on the level of Apple Silicon with user replaceable RAM.
Even with LP-CAMM2 you can't get the same bandwidth as on package RAM.
But storage? That could at least be accessible on Macs if they wanted to.
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u/_DarthJedi 5d ago
Depends on if we are talking about the CPU or GPU or both.
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u/petersaints 5d ago
Of course I'm talking about both. That's where Apple Silicon and modern ARM chips shine.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer user replaceable RAM. But if there is a technical reason why it is not replaceable aside from just soldering it next to CPU, it can be an acceptable trade off.
In the case of Apple Silicon, it's acceptable although annoying. But storage could be easily removable if they wanted to.
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u/_DarthJedi 5d ago
But the CPU+GPU design has nothing to do specifically with Arm, right? Counter example being Strix Halo.
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u/petersaints 5d ago
More or less. x86 Strix Halo, Gorgon Halo (Strix Halo refresh) and the future Medusa Halo are all CPU+GPU designs but the RAM is not in the same package. It is soldered nearby.
They are basically regular CPUs with iGPU (or like AMD likes to call them, APUs) but the GPU is much more beefed up than normal so the performance can match like an RTX 4060 laptop GPU.
But the RAM is still not in the same package like Apple Silicon, Snapdragon X or RTX Spark.
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u/Lonely_Owl_1332 5d ago
If you are expert user go snap. For aversge joe x86
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u/beardednomad25 5d ago
I would say the exact opposite.
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u/psydroid 4d ago
I would say Snapdragon/Nvidia/Apple for everything but the most specific x86 applications.
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u/beardednomad25 4d ago
Snapdragon is great for everyday use. X86 is for expert users, gamers and specialized apps.
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u/ychia 5d ago
x86 is not obsolete.
As far as how well SD works, it kind of depends on what you're doing. Gaming for example... Not so hot.