Qualcomm’s X Elite processor won’t just be popping up in laptops. On Tuesday, the company also revealed it’ll offer the chip through an $899 desktop unit — but it’s meant for software developers, rather than consumers. The Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows is arriving as a mini PC that weighs just 2.1 pounds. It’s designed to help software developers build and test apps for the Arm-based version of Windows, which is required for the Qualcomm X Elite to run. Still, the dev kit also essentially acts as a Windows 11 desktop, with ports to hook up to a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Ethernet cable. So while the hardware is meant for software developers, it does show that Qualcomm’s X Elite chips could also power desktop designs — if the company ever decides to move into such a direction.
(Credit: Qualcomm)
Both Qualcomm and Microsoft have previously sold Windows dev kits featuring Arm chips. But the processing speeds often lagged, according to reviews. In contrast, the latest Snapdragon Dev Kit is expected to post significantly better performance, thanks to the X Elite chips, which have been shown to outperform Intel’s latest silicon. In terms of specs, the new Snapdragon dev kit appears to use a different X Elite chip called the “X1E-00-1DE,” which is different from the laptop models. However, the chip still features 12 cores running up to 3.8GHz in clock speeds, along with boost speeds of up to 4.2GHz, putting it on par with the highest tier X1E-84-100 chip.
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The kit also includes 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, 512GB of NVME storage, and support for Wi-Fi 7. Although the product won’t officially launch until June 18, Qualcomm is already taking preorders for the dev kit on its website.
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