Qualcomm has introduced its next-gen flagship chip, complete with new tech and a brand new naming scheme.
Meet the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. A bit longer than the previous branding, but actually clearer and easier to remember. The digit refers to the class, with 8 being a flagship, and the generation it’s in.
This is also Qualcomm’s very first 4nm chipset. Plus, the CPU cores are now based on the ARMv9 design. It consists of a Cortex-X2 primary core clocked at 3.0GHz. That’s paired by three Cortex-A710 performance cores clocked at 2.5GHz and four Cortex-A510 efficiency cores at 1.8GHz.
As per Qualcomm, the chip will be 20% faster than the Snapdragon 888 while also being 30% more power-efficient.
The chipset also comes with an Adreno GPU that’s 30% more powerful and 25% more power-efficient. It has technologies like the Adreno Frame Motion Engine that that doubles the frame rate while using the same level of power. But if you want to extend the battery, it can keep the frame rates as is.
There’s also the volumetric rendering, which uses volumetric lighting for dramatic lighting effects. Plus, Variable Rate Shading Pro that helps seamlessly integrate VRS in more game titles. The company teamed up with some top developers to ensure that these new hardware features are utilized.
For connectivity, the Gen 1 Snapdragon 8 comes with an integrated X65 5G modem that has support for sub-6 and mmWave for up to 10Gbps speeds. It also has support for WiFi 6, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth LE with CD Lossless audio streaming. Qualcomm has also introduced the Trust Management Engine for security.
The first smartphones with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will come before the year ends, so expect announcements in the coming weeks.