Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8cx chip is built for future Always Connected PCs and supports Windows 10 Enterprise

Qualcomm kicked off its Snapdragon Tech Summit earlier this week in Hawaii, and today the company announced its new Snapdragon 8cx chip designed for the ground up for new Windows 10 Always Connected PCs. The Snapdragon 8xc is Qualcomm’s most powerful SoC ever with an octa-core Kryo 495 CPU, as well as the first 7nm platform that will be found in a PC.

Qualcomm emphasized that the Snapdragon 8cx will provide better performance than 15W Intel Core i5 chips, all while providing multi-day battery life. The Snapdragon 8cx is also 60% more efficient than the Snapdragon 850 (which is being used on 2nd gen Always Connected PCs), and it’s also 3.5x faster than the Snapdragon 835 that was used on pretty much high-end smartphones in 2017.

Here are other features that the Snapdragon 8cx will support:

• Latest DirectX 12 API
• VP9 & H.265 decoders
• 2nd gen HDR playback
• Dual 4K HDR external monitors
• 2.0 Gbps LTE speeds
• Qualcomm Quick charge 4
• Built-in Support for Cortana and Alexa

Qualcomm also confirmed this morning that ARM64 versions of Chromium and Mozilla Firefox are coming soon to Windows 10 on ARM. Additionally, the Snapdragon 8cx will be the first chip to come with native support for Windows 10 Enterprise, the most secure version of Windows 10. Erin Chapel, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft said on stage today that this will allow PC OEMs to create new Windows 10 on ARM devices designed for the enterprise.