Qualcomm’s Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 Is The ARM-Based Answer To AMD Ryzen Z1
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 Is The ARM-Based Answer To AMD Ryzen Z1
While AMD-powered ROG Ally and Steam Deck are taking the gaming handheld world by storm, ARM-based chipmaker Qualcomm is not sitting still: the company has just announced its new portfolio of gaming-dedicated chips designed for mobile handhelds like the ones aforementioned.
Qualcomm’s first foray into handheld-based chips started off with the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 – housed inside the Razer Edge handheld that runs games off the cloud instead of processing onboard. All thing considered, the Razer handheld didn’t receive too much fanfare, but with the new family that consists of three chips under the G series family, that may change.
The three chips in question are the updated Snapdragon G3x Gen 2, the new Snapdragon G2 Gen 1 as well as the new entry model, Snapdragon G1 Gen 1. Their GPUs also are uniquely tailored with new names, each featuring Adrenno A32, Adreno A21 and Adreno A11 respectively. The company didn’t provide much numbers, aside from the fact that the new G3x Gen 2 should provide 2x more GPU grunt over the original G3x, with 30% more CPU performance from 8 processing cores.
The G3x Gen 2 also comes with ray tracing and super-resolution support baked-in, as well as Wi-Fi 7 and 5G (sub-6 and mmWave) connectivity. The most important aspect of this chip, however, is the sustained performance: right from the get go, the G3x Gen 2 is 25% faster than the mobile-based Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and the gap widens significantly after 4 successive GFXBench 5.0 Aztec Ruins benchmark run, with over 60% better performance in favor of G3x Gen 2 in the 30th run as the 8 Gen 2 throttles due to thermal limits.
To strengthen the case, Qualcomm has also built a reference design based on the G3x Gen 2 chip, featuring 12GB LPDDR5X-4200, 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, front and rear 1080p60 cameras, 6.8-inch FHD+ 144Hz AMOLED panel, and active cooling system that can dissipate 15 watts of heat. It’s a very capable machine on paper – likely outpacing even the 8cx series chips that was designed mainly for ultra-lightweight Windows laptops.
As for the Snapdragon G2 Gen 1, not much details has been given aside from Wi-Fi 6E and FHD 144Hz display support. Meanwhile, the entry-level G1 Gen 1 is designed for cloud gaming handhelds that requires minimal onboard processing – something akin to Logitech G Cloud. Chips of this class usually can do away with active cooling systems, so the battery life should be better than the more powerful (and thus thirstier) chips.
Source: XDA Developers
Pokdepinion: A direct comparison with the AMD Ryzen Z1 is inevitable – but I’d like to see if the improvements in efficiency on the x86 front can face competition from the ARM realm.
