Stefan Mileschin

Review: Qualcomm (Microsoft) SQ1 ARM SoC inside

The day has finally arrived. A high-end design based on Qualcomm’s promising 8CX processor is finally shipping. Two weeks ago, it started shipping in the US, and just a few days ago the first systems shipped to customers in Europe.

Nailing the Surface X Pro deal is a big step for Qualcomm’s Always Connected PC (ACPC) initiative. Surface Pro X shows Microsoft’s commitment to both software and hardware, and it finally makes more sense why the software giant invested heavily to make its Windows 10 operating system ARM-compatible.

Microsoft has released an Intel-based Surface Pro 7 and even and AMD-based Surface laptop, as the company wants to be CPU- and platform-agnostic.
What About Surface Pro X Hardware?

The new Surface Pro X is thinnest and lightest surface 2-in-1 powered by Qualcomm’s 8CX processor. Don’t be confused by the SQ1 name. What we call Qualcomm 8CX, Microsoft’s marketing department refers to as the Microsoft SQ1 processor. The SQ1 is marketed as a custom SoC designed by Qualcomm, backed by a two teraflop Adreno GPU. To put this into perspective, the first discrete GPU to boast teraflop performance was AMD’s Radeon HD4850, a high-end product launched 11 years ago. Today, you can get twice the performance from a GPU integrated into a mobile SoC, which sounds impressive.

https://fudzilla.com/reviews/49879-surface-pro-x-review