Why 2025 will be the year Arm dominates PCs

Qualcomm’s first new Arm processor for Windows laptops in 2024 is arguably the most important PC hardware announcement since the launch of Intel’s 486 processor in 1989. Just like its arrival, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips have now brought us into a new era of competition.

But 2024 is just a preview. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon debut is limited, targeting a specific subset of high-end, thin and light Windows laptops that don’t require a discrete graphics card. 2025 will be the year that shows us the true extent of Arm’s innovation in the PC space.

I spoke with two expert analysts in the hardware space to find out how Arm PCs will continue to evolve.

Further reading: What’s new in buying laptops in 2025? 8 things to remember

Qualcomm chips will expand their influence

The launch of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite has been bumpy, to say the least. Microsoft calls these new Qualcomm-powered laptops “Copilot+ PCs” and touts their AI capabilities, but here’s the result: Think back to the headlines when they launched due to public backlash. After many delays, Just revealed to Windows Insider.

“I think the messaging failure was largely due to the trouble Microsoft was having with the recall,” said Leonard LeeExecutive Analyst and Founder of Next Curve with decades of experience in technology and business strategy, business and product innovation, and market intelligence.

On the hardware front, though, the Snapdragon X Elite has proven its worth to reviewers, analysts, and enthusiasts. Lee said that Snapdragon improves the performance per watt of Windows laptops regardless of artificial intelligence workloads. If you want a laptop with high performance and plenty of battery life, these Snapdragon PCs are the modern trailblazers.

Anshel caseVice president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy agreed with Lee and had special praise for the cheaper Snapdragon X Plus chip. Now available on $800 laptops like the Lenovo IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1. “I think they’re going to kill it with an eight-core chip,” Sager said. “It performs very well and delivers an experience that’s impossible to achieve at this price point.”

Although we’ve already seen these cheaper Snapdragon chips in laptops, CES 2025 (held in January) is likely to be the platform for laptop makers to launch a series of competitively priced Snapdragon machines.

However, one thing that is still missing is a “halo product”. Qualcomm is rumored to be developing an upgraded version of the Snapdragon X Elite chip, which has up to 18 processor cores (current chips have up to 12). Whether we’ll see such a chip in 2025 is hard to say, but not hard to imagine.

Qualcomm’s current hardware also lacks support for discrete GPUs, making them unusable for most workstations and gaming laptops. Adding support for discrete graphics cards could expand Snapdragon into new areas.

There is no doubt that more Qualcomm Snapdragon X hardware will appear in 2025.

MediaTek and Nvidia are obvious candidates. MediaTek already produces Arm chips for a variety of devices, including ChromeOS laptops. Nvidia also owns the production of Arm SoCs (such as Tegra) and uses Arm cores in its data center CPUs. There are rumors that they have Collaboration to produce new Arm chips starting next year.

Such a partnership, if it happens, could be complicated, Sager said. “I think the only way MediaTek can do this is to partner with Nvidia so they don’t have to worry about graphics drivers.” He predicted MediaTek could partner with Nvidia by licensing RTX GPUs, something they have done before for their own products. things. Dimensity Automotive SoC (for autonomous vehicles).

Lee also believes this future partnership will be difficult to navigate. “Just because you’re Nvidia and you’re the king of GPUs, doesn’t mean you automatically win,” Lee said. “You need CPUs, GPUs, and now NPUs. I don’t think MediaTek or Nvidia have any inherent advantage over Qualcomm in this regard.

This doesn’t just involve Windows PCs. Sag believes that MediaTek’s performance in the notebook field is still ChromeOS’s strongest. “I believe Google will basically let ChromeOS run as Android. I think MediaTek will follow suit. He may be right on the money, sources indicate Google is indeed transitioning ChromeOS to Android And build Android into a unified desktop operating system.

The threat from Google’s move should not be ignored. Although Google’s efforts to bring artificial intelligence capabilities to Chrome did not gain the same public attention as Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC, They are not illusory. Many users use the latest version of ChromeOS Already available are AI features like Gemini, Google’s own AI large language model that can be used for summarization, translation and other tasks.

Personally, I think a revamped ChromeOS powered by MediaTek chips (which tend to bring down prices) and infused with AI capabilities already in Pixel smartphones could thwart Microsoft’s misguided attempt to add AI to Windows PCs.

How will x86 PCs defend their turf?

Arm-based Windows and ChromeOS laptops may proliferate by 2025, but that doesn’t mean it’s time for x86 to be phased out.

Rather, x86’s continued relevance is what makes this new era of Windows different from the past three decades. PC hardware will no longer be dominated by one company or one instruction set, but will span multiple instruction sets and chip manufacturers.

“Intel and AMD have proven they can deliver competitive x86-based products,” Lee said. He noted that Intel’s new Lunar Lake chips and AMD’s new Ryzen AI series are highly competitive with Qualcomm in terms of performance and battery life. laptop like Samsung Galaxy Book5 ProThe product we reviewed is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU and, like its Qualcomm-based counterpart, has a battery life of over 20 hours.

This contest will benefit you, the laptop buyers and enthusiasts. This means more choices and lower prices. Sag said this will also benefit OEMs such as Asus, Lenovo and Dell.

“The complexity is challenging, but OEMs are optimistic about its effectiveness,” Sager said. “I’m seeing levels of silicon that have never existed in the industry. It’s cool because I’m hearing prototypes and concepts from OEMs—things I never thought would happen—that I never imagined.