So, the Arm revolution on the PC is almost here, what with the first Windows laptops packing the supposedly radical new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip. But if there is a big question mark hanging over the whole endeavour, it's emulation. More specifically, will the X Elite be any good at running old x86 Windows code?
By contrast, Apple's Rosetta 2 emulation layer for its Apple silicon Macs is pretty impressive. Apple silicon, of course, is Arm-based and replaced the Intel x86 era of Macs. So, there's a direct comparison to be made between Microsoft's Prism and Apple's Rosetta 2. Both performance and efficiency are key, of course. Emulated software is notoriously bad for battery life, so power-efficient code translation would be a huge benefit.But perhaps the most important element in all of this is that the 24H2 update for Windows 11 and Prism itself is specifically optimised for the X Elite chip. Again, the Apple comparison is revealing here.
But here's the real kicker. Prior to co-founding Nuvia in 2019, its CEO Gerard Williams was none other than Chief CPU architect at Apple for nearly a decade. The company was staffed by other former Apple engineers involved in the company's tranistion to Arm. Safe to say Nuvia and therefore Qualcomm knows all about the special sauce in Apple silicon that makes emulation run so well.. But there's much to be proven.