New reports suggest Microsoft could be working on a new Surface device powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chip.
German publication WinFuture has spotted a new Geekbench listing of a device code-named ‘OEMVL OEMVL Product Name EV2’ which features the Snapdragon processor. While there’s no mention in the listing of it being a Surface, WinFuture claims that this is indeed a Microsoft device. 
This won’t be the first time that Microsoft has made a Surface device with a Snapdragon chip, with the Surface Pro X launching as recently as 2019. The Snapdragon’s excellent thermal performance enabled the device to be noticeably slimmer than the standard Surface Pro, while also seeing an impressive 13-hour battery life.
However, due to the Arm architecture that the Snapdragon chip was built on, the Surface Pro X also suffered numerous software compatibility issues, while the performance lagged far behind the AMD and Intel processors found in other Surface devices. Things could be different this time round though, with Qualcomm claiming that Windows 11 should fix the vast majority of software issues for its next Snapdragon processor, while it’s also seemingly made big strides in improving CPU performance. 
The leaked benchmark results imply that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is achieving a similar performance to an 11th Generation i5 Intel Core processor, which is a big improvement for Qualcomm’s laptop chips. Of course, it’s important to remember that Geekbench 5 only measures CPU performance, so these benchmark results don’t take the likes of GPU power into consideration.
But this is still nevertheless impressive stuff from the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chip if accurate, especially if it’s still able to retain the same high-level battery life and thermal efficiency as its predecessors. 
With benchmark results already surfacing, it’s possible that this Surface device isn’t far from release. The Surface Laptop 4 launched in April 2021, so it’s possible that Microsoft could opt for a similar time frame for this mystery device.
In terms of what this Snapdragon-powered device could be, there’s a good chance it will be a Surface Pro X 2. Although looking at the benchmark scores and Qualcomm’s growing confidence in Arm’s compatibility with Windows, it’s certainly possible that this could be a Surface Laptop Go 2 instead. Either way, it looks like we may not have to wait long to find out.  Comments are closed.
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