ASUS puts Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite chip in a mini PC for the first time

ASUS is showing the very first mini PC with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite chip in Taiwan. Until now, that SoC with eighteen Arm cores was only used in laptops. It will come to the Benelux in August, although the recommended retail price is not yet known.

This is the ASUS Ascent QN10, a small desktop PC in a 0.7 liter housing. On board is the Snapdragon X2 Elite SoC, which has eighteen Arm cores and an 80Tops NPU. Qualcomm introduced that chip last year and actually released it earlier this year. Until now, however, the X2 Elite could only be found in laptops. Qualcomm says that this Ascent QN10 is "just the beginning," suggesting we can expect more of these Snapdragon mini PCs later.

The Ascent QN10 can also be supplied with a maximum of 32GB Lpddr5x-9600 memory. It also supports up to 4TB of SSD storage, divided over two M.2 slots, the manufacturer says. The device also has seven USB ports on board, two of which are USB4 connections with 40Gbit/s bandwidths. It also supports HDMI 2.1, 2.5Gbit/s Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

ASUS will release the mini PC later this year. A spokesperson for the company confirms that the release for the Netherlands and Belgium is planned for August.

Photos: Tweakers