With performance and especially efficiency that should scare Intel, Windows PCs running Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X Elite have strong appeal for content creators. The current problem is a lack of apps, but Blackmagic Design just announced that its popular (and free) DaVinci Resolve 19 (beta 3) video editing and effects software now supports Windows machines running the new chip.
“DaVinci Resolve 19 beta 3 now supports Qualcomm’s new all in one CPU, NPU and GPU processor for Windows, Snapdragon X Elite,” Blackmagic Design wrote in a press release. “DaVinci Resolve has been fine tuned to optimize performance of the DaVinci Neural AI Engine, with NPU acceleration giving customers up to 4.7x faster performance of AI tools such as magic mask and 2x faster performance for smart reframe on computers using this new processor.”
All the DaVinci Resolve 19 tools found on Intel PCs and Macs are on the Qualcomm platform as well. Those include the “ColorSlice” color correction tool, Ultra NR denoising, Intellitrack AI for motion tracking and stabilization, audio “ducking” and more. Since many of those are powered by AI, users should benefit from the Snapdragon X Elite’s neural engine (NPU) that beats nearly every laptop processor out there.
The Snapdragon X Elite also has outstanding multi-threaded CPU performance, topping many Intel chips and Apple’s M3. The VPU (video processing unit) offers AV1, VP9, HEVC (H.265) and H.264 encoding and decoding (up to 10-bit), so users should be able to work with most native camera formats and encode for YouTube and other platforms quickly.
Graphics performance is a bit of a weak point, though, with performance only on par with Intel’s Core Ultra 7, and well below most dedicated GPUs. Meanwhile, the Apple M3 GPU (on a MacBook Air) beats it by a wide 31 percent margin. That means DaVinci Resolve effects, encoding and more that rely on the GPU might be slow compared to Wintel and MacBook M3 machines.
Still, this is good news for content creators wishing for a lightweight road machine that can keep up to Apple’s laptops. DaVinci Resolve 19 public beta 3 for Windows on Arm with Snapdragon X Elite is now available for download from the Blackmagic Design web site.