Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs to Power First-Gen Windows 8 PCs

With the introduction of ARM support in Windows 8, many SoC makers have now the possibility of entering into the PC space and Qualcomm seems to be extremely interested in this market as it has recently announced that is collaborating with Microsoft to include Snapdragon processors in the first generation of Windows 8-based PCs.

The company hasn't mentioned which chips it plans to use for these computers, and settled to say they will feature the next-generation of mobile Snapdragon processors.

While it isn't expected to arrive until the second half of 2013, one of the most likely candidates for this role is the APQ8094 system-on-a-chip solution.

According to the information provided by Qualcomm, the SoC will include four processing cores with a clock speed of 2.5GHz, and support for either 800MHz dual channel LPDDR3 memory, or dual channel 1333MHz PCDDR4 memory.

The quad ARM cores will be paired together with a fast Adreno graphics core from the 400 series, the Adreno 420 to be more exact, with support for 3D video at 60fps in 1080p.

“Collaborating with Qualcomm to deliver Windows 8-based PCs will help deliver a high-performance and differentiated experience for customers,” said Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president of Windows planning, hardware and PC ecosystem, Microsoft.

“Working closely with Qualcomm allows us to maximize performance while maintaining a high level of energy efficiency,” concluded the company's rep.

In addition to the Snapdragon system-on-a-chip solutions, Qualcomm also expects its Gobi mobile Internet solutions to be used for providing 3G/4G connectivity to future Windows 8-based PCs.

ARM chip makers have had their sights on the x86 computer market for quite a while now, but the low performance of their chips and Windows' lack of support for the ARM architecture have prevented them for entering into this space.