Deep Dive Snapdragon X Elite Review

In this video Gordon dives deep into his results from testing a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite based Microsoft Surface Laptop 7.

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Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Test machine specs
04:40 - Cinebench multi core
10:26 - Cinebench single thread
12:11 - Handbreak
15:05 - Blender
16:28 - CPU-Z Bench
19:46 - Lightroom Classic
24:06 - Chrome
26:23 - Excel
29:19 - Procyon Office
31:27 - PugetBench Photoshop
40:03 - Topaz AI
41:15 - Gigapixel AI
42:15 - Adobe Acrobat
43:34 - Thunderbolt
46:44 - Canon printer tool
48:36 - Google drive
50:24 - Blender benchmark
50:57 - TurboTax
51:51 - VLC / DVD
53:03 - Procyon battery test
1:00:07 - Procyon performance
1:03:17 - WebXprt power consumption
1:08:54 - Cinebench multicore power consumption
1:14:35 - Cinebench single thread power consumption
1:16:56 - Geekbench battery drain
1:23:57 - Cinebench battery drain
1:28:27 - Excel battery drain
1:30:51 - Testing philosophy
1:35:57 - Syncmonster testing methodology
1:45:24 - Real-World battery life test 1 results
1:55:40 - Real-World battery life test 2 results
2:06:35 - Real-World battery life test 3 results
2:10:14 - Final thoughts

#laptop #test #snapdragon

[DavidEsotica]

Gordon, wishing you all the best with your health.

[barrysinni]

Gordon, you are a big reason why i visit or watch Pcworld ! Great to see this post

[TheSocialGamer]

Please don't overdo it, Gordon. My family sends you love and prayers for strength and good health.

[theglowcloud]

I remember Gordon's MaxmimumPC days and really hope he's feeling better now.

[wargamingrefugee]

Three days of real world testing -- ah, the exciting work of a tech journalist. ;-) For what it's worth, listening to you relate the experience and the variables was my favorite part of the video.

[HeavyD]

Good to see you, Gordon! I've been reading your stuff since I was a kid! I can't remember if I learned your name first from CD-ROM Today, or Boot, or Maximum PC, but since I've been young you've been teaching me about computers!

[denverag]

One reason i suggest using CPU encode on Handbrake etc when testing CPU, is because we're trying to test the CPU, not the GPU, not hardware encoders that could be added to any CPU.
Additionally, while i primarily use CPU encoding for handbrake because i want higher quality and smaller files, that is very situational, NVENC, Intel QS, AMD VCE, and Apple VTB can offer smaller files and similar or better quality. They can also end up larger than source files while looking worse.
It depends entirely on the source video settings and destination video settings.

For example, my TV recordings come in as MPEG2. The 1080i recordings can be as much as 8GB/h. Converting that to H265 on CPU can drop than to 1.2GB/h even sub 800MB/h depending on source video (is it B&W with simple animations slides, or a highly detailed live action movie with HDR).
Contrast this with hardware encoding, because of an issue with FFMPEG, Handbrake, or just hardware encoders in general, to get similar quality to source, NVMEC, iQS, and VCE can go up in file size to 20GB/h, the only one that generally reduces the file size without giving up visual quality is Apple VTB on my M1 Mac Mini, but it doesnt save much, going from 8GB/h down to just 5-6GB/h

Now contrast this to the recordings from my 4K 10b 4:2:2 200Mbps camera IIRC its H264. NVENC, QSV, VCE, and VTB all seem to hit almost the same compression quality and file size as CPU.(i have to convert them to.... 8 bit? otherwise i need the paid version of Davinci resolve before i can even trim 10bit video)



Edit: I do see value in benchmarking the GPU/HW encoding with a CPU test, because it still hits the CPU, i think its especially important on laptops where you may want to save battery life, but HW encoding might peg the CPU as well on one laptop processor, but not another.

[PurpleWarlock]

Gordon, a question: is there an embargo for Strix Point laptop reviews? I can imagine next week it will be mostly commentary on ASUS machines from reviewers.

[zodwraith]

Buying a Windows on Arm laptop is like buying an Intel Arc If Intel charged $500 for Arc.

You want it just to play with and it's going to do most of what you really need, but not something you're going to shift your entire computing workload to when there's still reliability problems with many apps and games. The problem is Arc is actually priced in a self aware fashion, but Arm is priced like an Apple product.

Anyone I know we were interested in Windows on Arm PCs because we thought they would usher in affordable thin PCs like they did for phones without putting up with ChromeOS. Not pay a premium to experience compatibility problems and not be able to play games. Especially when you can find plenty of X86 laptops with a modest dedicated GPU and still save hundreds off one of these. Not to mention it's not even _that_ much more efficient. If you're dead set on needing maximum battery life you're not realistically buying a thin and light with a tiny battery anyways, are you?

I'm just finding a hard time figuring out who these are actually for. If you only use it for browsing Chromebooks annihilate these in price. If you need maximum performance you're not buying a thin and light. If you need maximum battery life you're not buying a thin and light either. If you care about gaming at all you're not buying this. If it's about having the "latest and greatest" both Intel and AMD are mere months away from new releases that will erase any of these leads. If it's a status symbol you can't beat Apple.

I just fail to see _why_ anyone would pay more money to enjoy compatibility issues unless you just really hate Intel and AMD. Qualcomm really needed to offer these at a better price if they want any real foothold in the laptop market.

[fatalradius]

Gordon, love your content. Keep up the great work, and you're looking great.

[masterchi]

Props for the 3 day real-world battery test! They really add valuable info not present in any other review.

[LeesChannel]

Mr. Gordon, it's always a pleasure to see or hear you. I hope we'll be able to hear your thoughts on the whole intel situation, you're always the guy I look for when S hits the fan.

[halim]

only watching this bcoz gordon is talking, i trust his opinion

[jebojc]

Great to hear from you Gordon. You're the one I want to hear from about this!

[agentb]

Awesome in-depth review, Gordon! (I'm only halfway though right now, and wanted to say that before I forget.)
I'm hesitating to say "disappointed" with the results, because I feel like this *could* be better if they keep working on it and fix some things up. I'd be extremely interested to see a followup review in a few months or so!
Much love to you, The Silicon Sage. 💚 I always appreciate your work.

[west]

All of the best Gordon! May God heal you so you can get back to full strength! I just looked at a 9 month old clip, and you look soo much better right now buddy! Best wishes and prayers Mr Ung

[AK-Brian]

Fantastic roundup of tests, Gordon. You put a massive amount of effort into this and it shows.

Is that little mystery dip in system consumption during the CB2024 nT test a result of the thermals triggering the fan(s) to ramp up to maximum, granting it a literal second wind before stabilizing again?

[OHWACHACHA]

Gordon dropping the 2 hr review. Awesome work!

[retrosean]

Two hours! There's deep dives and then there's this! 😅

[Zecuto]

A two hour long video in this situation?
What an absolute legend, but please prioritize your health!