Details leak about the new Snapdragon 1000 that will power Windows 10 laptops

Windows 10 on ARM isn’t really all that popular. There isn’t any hardware that can really run the operating system to the level that x86 CPUs can. Qualcomm is looking to change that with the Snapdragon 1000, a 12W SoC aimed at competing with Intel.

Arstechnica reports that the SDM1000 (known as the Snapdragon 1000) is a new SoC that was built with powering Windows 10 in mind. The Snapdragon 1000’s CPU will draw a total of 6.5 watts, whereas the whole SoC will draw 12W. This goes up directly against the Intel Y and U series of mobile CPUs, which both draw 4.5 watts and 15 watts respectively.

Image credit: Qualcomm

The Snapdragon 1000’s test platform consisted of 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM, 802.11ad Wi-Fi, LTE, and a newly built power management controller. The 1000 is also a socketed processor, at least in the test systems, whereas they are usually soldered. The SoC is relatively large compared to its predecessor the Snapdragon 850, measuring up at 20x15mm as opposed to 12x12mm.

The chip is thought to be using ARM’s Cortex-A76 architecture and ARM are expecting performance to be similar to ‘U’ Skylake CPUs from Intel.

KitGuru Says: Qualcomm is getting serious about Windows 10 on ARM, it will be interesting to see what the Snapdragon 1000 brings to the market. Would you buy an ARM Windows 10 machine?

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