Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Dev Kit mini PC now available for pre-order, has the most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip to date

The Qualcomm Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows is a mini PC may be aimed at developers, but it’s also the most powerful PC you can buy with a Snapdragon X Elite processor… and it’s also one of the cheapest.

First announced in May, the little desktop computer is now available for pre-order from Arrow for $899. While that’s still a lot of money by modern mini PC standards, it’s less than the starting price for most recent laptops with Snapdragon X processors.

The system is a little computer that measures 199 x 175 x 35mm (8″ x 7″ 1.3″) and features 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, support for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 54, and a set of ports that includes:

• 3 x USB4 Type-C
• 2 x USB 3.2 Type-A
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x Ethernet

The start of the system is the Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-00-1DE) processor, which features:

• 12 Oryon CPU cores with support for frequencies up to 3.8 GHz (or up to 4.3 GHz of dual-core boost speed) and 42MB cache
• Adreno graphics with up to 4.6 TFLOPS graphics performance
• Hexagon NPU with up to 45 TOPS AI performance

While the chip is similar to the Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-84-100) processor used in some high-end laptops, that chip tops out at 4.2 GHz speeds and is designed for mobile devices (like premium laptops and 2-in-1 tablets), the processor used in the dev kit can consume more power (up to 80 watts) for better sustained performance, since battery life and heat aren’t as much of a problem.

The mini PC comes with a 180W power adapter. And in case the name of the Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows wasn’t a giveaway, the system ships with Windows 11.

via Tom’s Hardware