Qualcomm Snapdragon X Dev Kit for Windows

[geerlingguy]

Basic information

• Board URL (official): https://www.arrow.com/en/products/c8380-12c-mp-32g/thundercomm
• Board purchased from: Arrow
• Board purchase date: 2024-07-16 (Arrived 2024-09-25)
• Board specs (as tested): X Elite - 12 core, 32GB RAM, 512 GB NVMe SSD
• Board price (as tested): $855.42

Linux/system information

# output of `screenfetch`
PASTE_HERE

# output of `uname -a`
PASTE_HERE

Benchmark results

CPU

• Geekbench 6: (TODO single / TODO multi - PASTE_URL)
• TODO Gflops (geerlingguy/top500-benchmark HPL result)

Power

• Idle power draw (at wall): TODO W
• Maximum simulated power draw (stress-ng --matrix 0): TODO W
• During Geekbench multicore benchmark: TODO W
• During top500 HPL benchmark: TODO W

Disk

MANUFACTURER_AND_MODEL_OF_DISK_HERE

Benchmark	Result
iozone 4K random read	TODO MB/s
iozone 4K random write	TODO MB/s
iozone 1M random read	TODO MB/s
iozone 1M random write	TODO MB/s
iozone 1M sequential read	TODO MB/s
iozone 1M sequential write	TODO MB/s

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geerlingguy/pi-cluster/master/benchmarks/disk-benchmark.sh
chmod +x disk-benchmark.sh
sudo MOUNT_PATH=/ TEST_SIZE=1g ./disk-benchmark.sh

Run benchmark on any attached storage device (e.g. eMMC, microSD, NVMe, SATA) and add results under an additional heading.

Also consider running PiBenchmarks.com script.

Network

iperf3 results:

• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP: TODO Mbps
• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP --reverse: TODO Mbps
• iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP --bidir: TODO Mbps up, TODO Mbps down

(Be sure to test all interfaces, noting any that are non-functional.)

GPU

glmark2-es2 / glmark2-es2-wayland results:

1. Install glmark2-es2 with `sudo apt install -y glmark2-es2`
2. Run `glmark2-es2`
3. Replace this block of text with the results.

Note: This benchmark requires an active display on the device. Not all devices may be able to run glmark2-es2, so in that case, make a note and move on!

TODO: See this issue for discussion about a full suite of standardized GPU benchmarks.

Memory

tinymembench results:

Click to expand memory benchmark result

# Run the two commands below, then replace this code block with the full result.
git clone https://github.com/rojaster/tinymembench.git && cd tinymembench && make
./tinymembench

sbc-bench results

Run sbc-bench and paste a link to the results here:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/master/sbc-bench.sh
sudo /bin/bash ./sbc-bench.sh -r

Phoronix Test Suite

Results from pi-general-benchmark.sh:

• pts/encode-mp3: TODO sec
• pts/x264 4K: TODO fps
• pts/x264 1080p: TODO fps
• pts/phpbench: TODO
• pts/build-linux-kernel (defconfig): TODO sec

Provisional Tests under Windows

• Idle power draw (Windows 11 Home, no apps running) - 11 W
• Sleep power draw - 4.4 W
• Power off power draw - 0-0.9 W
• Cinebench 2024 (Arm Windows) - 131 single (at 28 W) / 1227 multi (at 99 W)
• Geekbench 6.3.0 (Arm Windows) - 3020 single (at 28 W) / 15969 multi (at 80 W) (result)
• Heaven (https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven) - TODO (at 40 W)

[geerlingguy]

A few notes as I'm unboxing:

• Box includes a power adapter and USB-C to HDMI adapter (I'm guessing the latter was added when they decided to drop the internal HDMI port).
• The bottom of the unit says "Evaluation only; not FCC approved for resale"
• According to devs on Discord, the unit comes with Windows 11 Home — and so far besides on-device partitions, there is no official way to download a recovery image or download other editions of Windows 11 built for Arm that work on it.
• The warranty states it is void if any parts are changed—and two of the phillips head screws in the base are covered by little 🚫 stickers
• Comparing the size, it's close to, but a little wider and less deep than a typical 1L 'square' mini PC. It's much larger (but shorter) than my GMKTek box (NUC-sized), and it's nearly the same width (just a hair wider) and a little deeper than the Windows Dev Kit (the one from 2023 / Project Volterra)

[MagicAndre1981]

there is no official way to download a recovery image or download other editions of Windows 11 built for Arm that work on it.

upgrading to a higher Windows SKU should work via entering a product key in settings app.

[geerlingguy]

Some hardware details:

• Ethernet port is on a separate daughtercard marked "Running HDMI Board" with an unpopulated HDMI port, and a display connector that is not connected to anything.
• Ethernet provided by RTL8125BG (2.5 Gbps Realtek NIC) on mPCIe card
• WiFi is a "T99H432.10" module, presumably Qualcomm though I can't find documentation on it. I have found one laptop, the MSI Alpha 17 C7V, which has the same model number (but .03 instead of .10), and it is listed as "WiFi 7". The WiFi module is E-key, and has a little heatsink mounted to it (with thermal pads on top and bottom).
• There's an unpopulated PCIe slot (no slot is installed, but the pads are on the board. I would really like that to be populated. Looks like full size x16, not sure if electrically connected as x16, x8, x4, x1, or not at all...
• There's a 2280 size NVMe SSD, a Foresee XP2200F512G, made by Longsys. It is mounted with a full-length heatsink (with thermal pads on top and bottom).
• There's a tiny daughtercard called "Running ECB" - does it have something to do with cryptography? Platform security? Not sure, it's mounted above a NanoSIM and microSD slot. The plug it is plugged into is labeled "EC_I/F"
• That's right, there's a hidden NanoSIM slot (with nothing in it), next to the microSD card slot that is exposed through the front of the case.
• The cooler is a massive copper heatsink with heat pipes and a massive cooling stack for the SoC itself. There are thermal pads on all the little power circuits, and a large amount of thermal compound on all four RAM chips and the SoC itself.
• The fan is APEXE model B82DBHA2467, with a 4-pin standard fan header on the motherboard (easy to remove, separate from the copper heatsink). It is connected to the heatsink with screws, and there is a taped on duct to port the exhaust out the side of the Dev Kit.
• There are a couple CSI ports, many unpopulated headers, an unpopulated eMMC spot near the RAM, and there's a micro USB debug port labeled DBG_UART

[geerlingguy]

Blog post with many photos and more detailed notes after zooming way way in: Qualcomm Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows Teardown (2024).

[utp216]

• Box includes a power adapter and USB-C to HDMI adapter (I'm guessing the latter was added when they decided to drop the internal HDMI port).

I wonder if you solder the appropriate HDMI port to the PCB if it would function. Maybe they didn't want to pay for HDMI licensing?

[apache405]

The ECB is an embedded controller board. ITE is one of the more popular EC chips out there.

[jglathe]

Arrow has just canceled my order for this one - I ordered on the same day 🤨. Thought they would ship none, then, but... whatever. The hardware seems nice enough, though. Do you want to run Linux on the thing? That was my intent. You also can run the Windows Dev Kit 2023 with Linux.

[SpieringsAE]

• Box includes a power adapter and USB-C to HDMI adapter (I'm guessing the latter was added when they decided to drop the internal HDMI port).

I wonder if you solder the appropriate HDMI port to the PCB if it would function. Maybe they didn't want to pay for HDMI licensing?

doesn't the DP to HDMI converter get around that? as in the licensing cost is already part of the converter chip?

But yeah I wondered the same thing, maybe even make a different daughterboard that just exposes DP directly.

Same with the unpopulated PCIE slot, wonder how far populating that gets, on windows it might be locked out of the ACPI tables, but on Linux you might be able to just add it to the devicetree blob

[talynone]

Richard Campbell with hardware design experience speculated HDMI FCC approval was the issue, more info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlEV38cO8Gs

[talynone]

Getting the Windows ARM ISO is doable but requires a bit more effort right now:

https://www.makeuseof.com/download-install-windows-11-arm-iso/

Of course make sure you have a backup or source for all the system specific drivers before wiping the existing installation.

[anonymix007]

T99H432.10

I believe the actual model is NCM865A. NCM865 is used in some WiFi 7 products and AFAIK the only difference between them is the Bluetooth connection interface (USB vs UART).

[SpieringsAE]

Richard Campbell with hardware design experience speculated HDMI FCC approval was the issue, more info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlEV38cO8Gs

tbh, why even hdmi at all, DP is right there, on the board, why put extra chips on a board to make the display interface worse (arguably).

[theholypumpkin]

I'm very excited about the Linux benchmarks!!!

I'm waiting for Tuxedo Computers with their Snapdragon X Model to be released maybe at the end of 2024 and Wondering what performance I can expect in comparison to my Late 2013 MacBook Pro.

Now with kernel 6.11 out, the Snapdragon X chips should at work, but looking at the release notes looks like it's still not fully baked. Probably by 6.12.

[lukasMega]

what is the power consumption in common use cases (idle in headless mode, idle with desktop, load, ...) Thank you!

[talynone]

There's not many disk imaging/cloning apps that work on Windows ARM right now, this procedure seemed to have worked for others (read the comments for gotchyas):

https://old.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1dniufo/ssd_clonemigrate_on_arm/