Qualcomm updates 8cx-soc for laptops with 802.11ax wifi and new dsp

Qualcomm has released a new version of its 8cx-soc for laptops. The new version has support for Wi-Fi via 802.11ax and has a new one digital signal processor compared to its predecessor.

The first laptops with the 8cx Gen 2 5G will be released later this year, Qualcomm says. Support for Wi-Fi 6 comes via the standard 802.11ax and the modem can connect to Wi-Fi just like in the previous version of the 8cx 2×2 MiMo. The bluetooth version goes from 5.0 to 5.1. The modems for 4G and 5G are the same as the previous versions from December 2018 and 2019.

The Hexagon 690 is the new dsp, because the previous version contains the Hexagon 685. The 690 has a ‘tensor accelerator’ for better performance in machine learning. With a Hexagon 685, those kinds of tasks fall to the DSP itself, in combination with the CPU and GPU. That CPU and GPU are unchanged from the 8cx.