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!
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.
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.
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.
Buying a Windows on Arm laptop is like buying an Intel Arc GPU...... 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.
@@POVwithRC I didn't say it's useless. Much like Arc it's good it exists. I just have to question the wisdom of it's pricing and what Qualcomm is expecting by it. Do they think they're Apple? Qualcomm does _not_ have the cultist following Apple does and x86 users aren't going to be like iDiots that happily deal with wonky performance and straight up broken apps so they can worship a fruit. Expecting real value, compatibility, and performance is WHY we don't use iCrap. As you said, give it time, _just_ like with Arc. But Intel didn't try to gouge the customer right out of the gate. They aren't Apple selling a status symbol, and they aren't Nvidia selling world leading performance and stability. The chip has real potential but it just hits me as monumentally stupid to price it like iCrap if they want to actually sell these.
It's probably made for people like me. I have the 15" Surface Laptop. My entire workflow other than 1 app is ARM native. I spend most of my time in VSCode, Office apps, browser, and sometimes WSL. The battery life is superb for my use case, lasting me between 13-16 hours. Sleep/wake is instant, and overnight battery only drops 2%. The equivalent MacBook Air would have cost me $500 more here in Australia.
@@auntcleo1997 Noted, but how much would you have saved if you went with x86? Are you _really_ away from a power source for 13-16hrs? Are you writing VSCode in the outback? My HP Envy 360 has a plenty fast CPU, convertible for tent, tablet, or traditional laptop modes, upgradeable memory and storage, OLED screen, decent 6-8hr battery life, can actually play some games, and was under _half_ the cost of the 15" Surface. Is that little bit better battery life worth _TWO_ comparable convertible laptops that can do everything that Surface can? My point is, battery life is overrated unless you're _truly_ mobile in the field and don't have access to power. Which most likely _isn't_ the case if you're using office and VSCode. Anyone I know really only uses their laptops as _portable_ computers, bouncing from the office, home, kitchen etc., not stuck in the middle of nowhere compiling code like a caveman. I keep one cord in my office and another in my kitchen. They're only like $30. When today's laptop chargers aren't the archaic cinder blocks we used to have to deal with I _guarantee_ you keep your charger with you. Not to mention if you _are_ out in the middle of nowhere with the money saved you could buy a battery backup that would last for days, not hours. I see people performing all kinds of mental gymnastics why a $2000 laptop that can't game is worth it, when really they just need to warrant a foolish purchase because even they know they got ripped off.
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.
1:21:40 I think the smoothness is a measurement artifact from a low pass filter on the battery gauge on the Snapdragon. See the exponential tail-off at the end? No way that's a natural characteristic of Geekbench.
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
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.
Why do they think that they can price this like it is an exclusive product? MS and Qualcomm just don't get the PC market. Intel understood so that even when they released their GPUs that they understood. People are not going to spend more for unproven than proven so even though they gave you 16GB of VRAM buffer, it was still the cost of a card with 6 GB from Nvidia and 8 GB from AMD. Good to see your hair is coming back nicely though Gordon.
Finally Gordon on the Snapdragon CPUs! I already own a Surface Laptop 7, but still excited to hear his analysis, haha. I bought the X Plus actually, the base model, because that made the most sense overall. The upgrades are very expensive, especially here in Europe - you'd have to pay 2500 euros for the 32GB model, which doesn't have anything else going for it, no OLED, no better CPU (than the basic Elite), etc. So I figured that for 1200 euros an insanely good built quality + trackpad + battery life + low emissions make sense, but investing in it more heavily wouldn't worth it, especially with the still compromised graphics power and compatibility. According to some tests, the X Plus is barely slower in the 13.8 inch model than the X Elite.
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?
That kind of jump likely isn't from the fans as it's an awful lot of power. There's usually also a delay in the "fan hysteresis" which i've measured looking at the noise output of the laptops you can see too. But basically once a laptop heats up and the fans crank up, they usually stay there until the entire run is over and the laptop cools off. TLDR; it's likely a heavy load on the CPU backing off which is in Cinebench is the benchmark completing one frame render.
1:46:50 If the Surface had a 75 Whr battery, it would have worked for 350 minutes, which is more than intel, in my opinion it is necessary to conduct tests with AMD than with Intel
Didn't he say that due to discord, slack etc the SD was running emulation? If that is the case its incredibly impressive by the SD compared to Intel. I think the best way to have done it was to use both AMD and Intel against SD. Since a lot of Laptops only have Intel also. Either way I'm more impressed they managed to fit 75 Whr compared to 54. If only Microsoft could have managed that.
There a typo in timestamps for handbrake. Currently it is handbreak instead of handbrake. There isn't any snapdragon arm PC in India. By the time strix is released arm will be in the first just for CPU, GPU performance. Battery life might be better with snapdragon.
I'm curious how this will compare with strike point and lunar lake. Interesting that it does as well as it does, but on the other hand being competitive with what's very soon to be last gen may soon seem less impressive, especially if the x86 competing improve battery life.
With the app compat issues I feel like they needed to deliver on a whole new world of performance or battery life, or be priced meaningfully lower,and AFAICS they did neither. That double performance Lightroom example rocks though. This part at least finally looks worth using after more than a decade of trying to get Windows on ARM to a good place… even if I don’t think it’s worth buying….
I have issues with thunderbolt 3 cable from Mac. They did not work with my Anker 577 docking station. I got an Anker thunderbolt 4 from Anker and it works very good not issue. I wonder what is going on with Apple Cables.
I have an external Thunderbolt/USB4 enclosure with a 2 TB WD SN850X drive in it. On the Yoga Slim 7X I get 2100 MB/s transfer speed, but on my HP Envy 16 with Thunderbolt I get 3100 MB/s. Maybe it is a driver issue on the Yoga.
so performance is same , 5% difference but price is $1299 intel laptop but snapdragon x laptop is $2000.00 , its a pass on these first gen ARM cpus running windows
I actually see a work case for this. The company I work for provides all employees laptops and we just need a bunch of MS Word, a bit of Excel, Outlook, Teams, Adobe PDF Reader, Chrome, Edge, SAP and some VPNs depensing on the projects. As long as these work properly amsthe battery life is really longer than our company would benefit from ARM. Additionally, if they go with the b2b route it'll be easier for Qualcomm to resolve a lot of issues, as they'd be notified by business and they'd have a large incentive to look into any issues. I think this has a lot of potential. These laptops also idle a lot without being put to sleep (so you dont appear offline in teams) and the browsers come with an adblock for security.
He's been battling cancer. That's why he says he was "frozen in carbonite for six months" - he was on medical leave for a good chunk of last year and early this year. edit: He's recently been back in the studio to host The Full Nerd a few times, though.
Gordon, wishing you all the best with your health.
what happen to him?
@@user-cx6rg6mr7dhe's been fighting cancer
he unfornat got canser i think
@@noobnoob5072 sorry to hear that, wish hm the best
Please don't overdo it, Gordon. My family sends you love and prayers for strength and good health.
Gordon, you are a big reason why i visit or watch Pcworld ! Great to see this post
I remember Gordon's MaxmimumPC days and really hope he's feeling better now.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Buying a Windows on Arm laptop is like buying an Intel Arc GPU...... 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.
Give it time
@@POVwithRC I didn't say it's useless. Much like Arc it's good it exists. I just have to question the wisdom of it's pricing and what Qualcomm is expecting by it.
Do they think they're Apple? Qualcomm does _not_ have the cultist following Apple does and x86 users aren't going to be like iDiots that happily deal with wonky performance and straight up broken apps so they can worship a fruit. Expecting real value, compatibility, and performance is WHY we don't use iCrap.
As you said, give it time, _just_ like with Arc. But Intel didn't try to gouge the customer right out of the gate. They aren't Apple selling a status symbol, and they aren't Nvidia selling world leading performance and stability. The chip has real potential but it just hits me as monumentally stupid to price it like iCrap if they want to actually sell these.
@@zodwraith5745 agree 100% , without enough initial buyers it dies before it gets going and its a small % going to fork out 1500
It's probably made for people like me. I have the 15" Surface Laptop. My entire workflow other than 1 app is ARM native. I spend most of my time in VSCode, Office apps, browser, and sometimes WSL. The battery life is superb for my use case, lasting me between 13-16 hours. Sleep/wake is instant, and overnight battery only drops 2%. The equivalent MacBook Air would have cost me $500 more here in Australia.
@@auntcleo1997 Noted, but how much would you have saved if you went with x86? Are you _really_ away from a power source for 13-16hrs? Are you writing VSCode in the outback? My HP Envy 360 has a plenty fast CPU, convertible for tent, tablet, or traditional laptop modes, upgradeable memory and storage, OLED screen, decent 6-8hr battery life, can actually play some games, and was under _half_ the cost of the 15" Surface. Is that little bit better battery life worth _TWO_ comparable convertible laptops that can do everything that Surface can?
My point is, battery life is overrated unless you're _truly_ mobile in the field and don't have access to power. Which most likely _isn't_ the case if you're using office and VSCode. Anyone I know really only uses their laptops as _portable_ computers, bouncing from the office, home, kitchen etc., not stuck in the middle of nowhere compiling code like a caveman. I keep one cord in my office and another in my kitchen. They're only like $30.
When today's laptop chargers aren't the archaic cinder blocks we used to have to deal with I _guarantee_ you keep your charger with you. Not to mention if you _are_ out in the middle of nowhere with the money saved you could buy a battery backup that would last for days, not hours.
I see people performing all kinds of mental gymnastics why a $2000 laptop that can't game is worth it, when really they just need to warrant a foolish purchase because even they know they got ripped off.
Props for the 3 day real-world battery test! They really add valuable info not present in any other review.
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.
only watching this bcoz gordon is talking, i trust his opinion
Great to hear from you Gordon. You're the one I want to hear from about this!
1:21:40 I think the smoothness is a measurement artifact from a low pass filter on the battery gauge on the Snapdragon. See the exponential tail-off at the end? No way that's a natural characteristic of Geekbench.
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
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.
Gordon, love your content. Keep up the great work, and you're looking great.
Two hours! There's deep dives and then there's this! 😅
A two hour long video in this situation?
What an absolute legend, but please prioritize your health!
Gordon dropping the 2 hr review. Awesome work!
Why do they think that they can price this like it is an exclusive product? MS and Qualcomm just don't get the PC market. Intel understood so that even when they released their GPUs that they understood. People are not going to spend more for unproven than proven so even though they gave you 16GB of VRAM buffer, it was still the cost of a card with 6 GB from Nvidia and 8 GB from AMD. Good to see your hair is coming back nicely though Gordon.
Good to see Gordon looking strong
We love you Gordon!
Finally Gordon on the Snapdragon CPUs! I already own a Surface Laptop 7, but still excited to hear his analysis, haha. I bought the X Plus actually, the base model, because that made the most sense overall. The upgrades are very expensive, especially here in Europe - you'd have to pay 2500 euros for the 32GB model, which doesn't have anything else going for it, no OLED, no better CPU (than the basic Elite), etc. So I figured that for 1200 euros an insanely good built quality + trackpad + battery life + low emissions make sense, but investing in it more heavily wouldn't worth it, especially with the still compromised graphics power and compatibility. According to some tests, the X Plus is barely slower in the 13.8 inch model than the X Elite.
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?
That kind of jump likely isn't from the fans as it's an awful lot of power. There's usually also a delay in the "fan hysteresis" which i've measured looking at the noise output of the laptops you can see too. But basically once a laptop heats up and the fans crank up, they usually stay there until the entire run is over and the laptop cools off.
TLDR; it's likely a heavy load on the CPU backing off which is in Cinebench is the benchmark completing one frame render.
For a second I heard that as "Content Aware Phil" and was like "That would be a cool name for an AI
The new Clippy
Looking good big man.
The plot of this video was a thousand times better than disney star wars.
1:46:50 If the Surface had a 75 Whr battery, it would have worked for 350 minutes, which is more than intel, in my opinion it is necessary to conduct tests with AMD than with Intel
Didn't he say that due to discord, slack etc the SD was running emulation? If that is the case its incredibly impressive by the SD compared to Intel. I think the best way to have done it was to use both AMD and Intel against SD. Since a lot of Laptops only have Intel also. Either way I'm more impressed they managed to fit 75 Whr compared to 54. If only Microsoft could have managed that.
Am I buying a new laptop anytime soon? No. Did I watch the video from start to finish? Yes.
Snap Pea is about to get walloped by Zen 5.
Gordon, we need the same comparison between Snapdragon and Ryzen AI chip
There a typo in timestamps for handbrake. Currently it is handbreak instead of handbrake.
There isn't any snapdragon arm PC in India. By the time strix is released arm will be in the first just for CPU, GPU performance. Battery life might be better with snapdragon.
Good video! Informative.
The Dell XPS line probably the best way to compare since its basically the same lapotp with different chips.
considering how much they cost im not really impressed
I'm curious how this will compare with strike point and lunar lake. Interesting that it does as well as it does, but on the other hand being competitive with what's very soon to be last gen may soon seem less impressive, especially if the x86 competing improve battery life.
With the app compat issues I feel like they needed to deliver on a whole new world of performance or battery life, or be priced meaningfully lower,and AFAICS they did neither. That double performance Lightroom example rocks though. This part at least finally looks worth using after more than a decade of trying to get Windows on ARM to a good place… even if I don’t think it’s worth buying….
I have issues with thunderbolt 3 cable from Mac. They did not work with my Anker 577 docking station. I got an Anker thunderbolt 4 from Anker and it works very good not issue. I wonder what is going on with Apple Cables.
Raidrive can be used as an alternative to Google Drive on Windows ARM.
We need Davinci Resolve Benchmarks
I have an external Thunderbolt/USB4 enclosure with a 2 TB WD SN850X drive in it. On the Yoga Slim 7X I get 2100 MB/s transfer speed, but on my HP Envy 16 with Thunderbolt I get 3100 MB/s. Maybe it is a driver issue on the Yoga.
vlc has experimental arm64 version. I have tried it and it runs ok for basic video playback.
wow, these got pricey, kinda 3 times as much :0
so performance is same , 5% difference but price is $1299 intel laptop but snapdragon x laptop is $2000.00 ,
its a pass on these first gen ARM cpus running windows
I actually see a work case for this. The company I work for provides all employees laptops and we just need a bunch of MS Word, a bit of Excel, Outlook, Teams, Adobe PDF Reader, Chrome, Edge, SAP and some VPNs depensing on the projects. As long as these work properly amsthe battery life is really longer than our company would benefit from ARM.
Additionally, if they go with the b2b route it'll be easier for Qualcomm to resolve a lot of issues, as they'd be notified by business and they'd have a large incentive to look into any issues.
I think this has a lot of potential. These laptops also idle a lot without being put to sleep (so you dont appear offline in teams) and the browsers come with an adblock for security.
Snapdragon X Elite 🔋🔋💪
"We're on a mission from ARM"
Will be a tough sell for a barley faster in some apps laptop that's 700$ more and worse display and battery life.
Gordon way use intel !
Why does gordon look like he is being ravaged by something ???
He's been battling cancer. That's why he says he was "frozen in carbonite for six months" - he was on medical leave for a good chunk of last year and early this year.
edit: He's recently been back in the studio to host The Full Nerd a few times, though.
the doctor is dissolving his insides with what they call 'medicine'. looks like he's being poisoned.
Gee I wonder
when lg gram can have snapdragon x @@
"drivers cant be emulated" 😐
Which is why Google Drive doesn't work, relies on a file system driver.
Love Gordon but 2+ hours is way too long for a platform I have no interest in buying. Give me the 5-10 minute tl;dw
Whenever Snapdragon wins you sound disappointed 😂 Its ok you can say you like x86 even though it loses to Qualcomm😂😂
How did this horrible mag outlast maximum PC ? Wish old boy was still over at maximum.
It’s a joke compared to Apple Silicon 😮😂
I think that's a pretty reductive statement. Try to do better, please.
TL;DW... it sucks. DO NOT buy. SO MUCH better to buy into the Apple ecosystem than this POS of an "ecosystem" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Arm for Windows will forever be crippled.
you really didn't watch...