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Chip maker Qualcomm is probably best known for making the processors that power flagship smartphones and tablets, but the company has been making a play for the PC space over the past few years… with limited success.
While the Snapdragon X line of chips generated a lot of buzz when it first launched a few years ago, we've seen a relatively small number of PCs released with those processors, and most have been laptops or tablets rather than desktops. But when Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Extreme processors last week, the company wasn't only showing them off in laptops. There were also a couple of extraordinarily compact mini PC prototypes.
Allround-PCJournalists at outlets including Tom's Hardware, HotHardware, and PC Mag got a look at those prototypes, and reports that one is a small round disk that looks more like a coffee cup warmer or a network appliance than a full-fledged PC. But despite measuring just about half an inch thick, it is a fully functional desktop computer.
Detailed specifications aren't available, as this is just a prototype and/or reference design, and may never actually become a real product. But according to PC Mag, it's got a glowing Qualcomm logo on top, some vents on bottom, and a set of USB-C ports along the sides for charging, video output, and data.
Another prototype is a small square PC with rounded edges that looks more like a portable CD/DVD drive than a computer. But this model is designed to be the brains of an all-in-one desktop. Just dock the computer module to the base of a monitor stand and it will draw power from the stand while outputting video to the large-screen display.
HotHardware (YouTube)One of the interesting things about these li ttle concept PCs is how they stay cool despite their small sizes.
While Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors are known for their energy efficiency, part of the reason these chips are able to go head-to-head with the latest Intel, AMD, and Apple chips in the desktop and laptop space is because they do consume more power (and consequently generate more heat) than the chips typically found in phones. So while it's theoretically possible to make a fanless mini PC with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 series processor, this little round computer uses Frore's AirJet cooling system to offer active heat dissipation in a package that's so thin it'd be hard to fit a normal fan.
Frore describes its AirJet technology as a solid state cooling system that uses tiny membranes that vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies without the need for spinning fans. It's an active cooling system that fits in smaller spaces and generates less noise than a fan. But while AirJet has been available for a f ew years, it hasn't been widely adopted in the consumer electronics space yet, likely due to a combination of cost and energy efficiency concerns (you'd need a bunch of AirJet modules to cool a high-performance laptop, for example, making fans a cheaper solution that won't drain your battery).
Still, it's interesting to see Qualcomm using the technology in its tech demos as a way to squeeze a little more performance out of an ultrathin mini PC than you'd be able to get using passive cooling alone.
One thing to keep in mind about all of Qualcomm's new demos though, is that while they look great on paper, real-world performance will vary greatly depending on the task.
The embargo on synthetic benchmark tests appears to have lifted today, with multiple sites reporting that the new chips are some of the fastest available when it comes to benchmarks like Cinebench, GeekBench, 3DMark (for graphics) and Procyon (for AI). But those benchmarks are all tuned to t reat Qualcomm's ARM-based processors as first class citizens by now, while many legacy applications that you might want to run on a Windows PC are not. And that means that real-world performance may be slower than you'd expect from a system with such a high-performance processor if you're running software that hasn't been optimized for it.
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