The Qualcomm Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows is a mini PC-like development platform based on the 12-core Snapdragon Elite X to develop new AI applications. with Copilot+ AI PC features internally developed by Microsoft.
Although slightly larger, the external design resembles the Windows Dev Kit 2023 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 computing platform, but internally the new devkit has an Armv8 Oryon 4.3 GHz X Elite 12 processor with a much more powerful 64-bit core. along with 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD, and offers a range of ports and features such as USB4 and WiFi 7.
Specifications of Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows (2024):
- Snapdragon X Elite SoC (X1E-00-1DE)
- Processor 12-core 64-bit Armv8 Oryon processor clocked up to 3.8 GHz or 4.3 GHz for single or dual-core boost, 42 MB total cache
- Adreno GPU up to 4.6 TFLOPS, DX12 API support
- AI accelerators
- Hexagonal NPU with up to 45 TOPS
- Dual micro NPU on Qualcomm Sensing Hub
- Total up to 75 TOPS by combining CPU, GPU, NPU and micro NPU
- Up to 30 tokens per second for 7 billion LLM
- VPU Adreno VPU
- 10-bit 4K60 encoder, H.264 encoder, HEVC (H.265), AV1
- 4K120 decoding 10-bit decoding H.264, HEVC (H.265), VP9,
- Competitive 4K60 decodes H.264, HEVC (H.265), VP9, AV1 and 2x 4K30 encodes H.264, HEVC (H.265), AV1
- System memory 32 GB LPDDR5x RAM
- 512GB NVMe SSD storage
- Video output
- HDMI port
- 3x USB4 ports
- Up to 3 4K UHD monitors are supported
- 3.5 mm audio jack
- Connectivity
- USB
- 3x USB4 Type-C ports
- 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports
- Safety STPM
- Miscellaneous Power button
- Dimensions 199 x 175 x 35 mm
- Weight 970 grams
- Materials Housing made of 20% recycled ocean plastic (for ESG points as in the previous development kit)
Since it’s designed for Windows developers, the Dev Kit obviously comes with Windows 11. However, note that Linux development is also underway for Snapdragon upstream. Qualcomm will supply a kit with a 180W (!) power adapter, a power cable and a user manual.
Developers will have access to a native Arm64 toolchain with Visual Studio/VS code, runtimes, libraries and frameworks and the ability to run Arm64 virtual machines and CI/CD infrastructure and services directly on the device to build, test and publish software. Qualcomm also highlights 45 TOPS NPUs to accelerate AI/ML (generative) workloads such as LLM (Large Language Models) and LVM (Large Vision Models) on the device via Qualcomm AI Stack and Qualcomm AI Hub with 100+ pre-trained and AI models optimized for Snapdragon.
Qualcomm is accepting pre-orders for the Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows at $899 via an online form, but retail availability is expected by June 18, 2024. Additional information can be found in the press release as there is no product page on the site. time of writing.
Via Liliputing
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 on a part-time basis, before leaving his role as head of software engineering to write daily news and reviews full-time later in 2011.
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