Snapdragon 8cx Plus Could Give Windows 10 On ARM A Slight Boost

Apple, as always, made headlines this week with its confirmation that it is indeed moving towards its own ARM-based processors. Of course, it isn't the first major operating system vendor to make such a move, though its one-way journey is more permanent than Microsoft's foray into ARM-based devices. The latter hasn't exactly been a roaring success for a variety of reasons but Qualcomm may soon be giving Microsoft one less reason to blame it on processor performance.

To be fair, Qualcomm's ARM-based Snapdragons have proven themselves quite capable of heavy loads. It's just the mix of a rather gigantic Windows 10 operating system and perhaps some virtualization to run win32 software that is dragging the chip maker's Windows-centric processors down. It may have a slight refresh of those processors that could help improve Windows 10 on ARM's chances just by a bit.

WinFuture got hold of information pointing to a Qualcomm SC8180XP. Considering the Snapdragon 8cx is the SC8180X, it might not be too far-fetched to call this a Snapdragon 8cx Plus. Especially considering the boost in clock cycles.

It's more of a step up than a leap, though, with the "Plus" chip clocking in at 3.15 GHz for its four "Gold" Kryo 495 cores. The four "Silver" cores do remain at 1.8 GHz while the exact Adreno GPU used for this variant seems to be uncertain at this point.

The publication warns that there is no certainty Qualcomm will actually launch such a chip but it could at least make future Windows 10 on ARM devices sound a bit more notable. This Snapdragon 8cx Plus does sound a little like the custom Snapdragon-based Microsoft SQ1 used in the Surface Pro X, which was indeed noted for its better performance. That said, the platform still seems a ways off, though Apple's upcoming ARM MacBooks could force Microsoft and Qualcomm to step things up and quickly.