Qualcomm has announced the imminent release of a new flagship processor that will replace the Snapdragon 888. The company has abandoned the old naming system – now instead of three digits, the generation of the device will be indicated. So the new chip is named Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, get used to it! The new processor will be installed in flagship smartphones in 2022. It seems that Apple A15 has a worthy competitor that can surprise – the new generation of Snapdragon has received energy efficiency improvements and the latest architecture. Here’s everything you need to know about the new product from Qualcomm.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Specs
The future has already arrived: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the latest chip for 2022 flagships. It is built on the latest Armv9 architecture. The main feature of the new 8-core Kryo processor is several high-performance cores, the main of which is based on the Cortex-X2 with a frequency of 3.0 GHz, three cores on the Cortex-A710 with a frequency of 2.5 GHz, and four more energy-efficient cores on the Cortex- A510 with a frequency of 1.8 GHz.
The novelty is manufactured using a 4-nanometer process technology. By the way, if you do not know what the essence of the technical process is and why it is constantly changing, read about it in our material. In the new CPU, performance has increased by 20%, and energy efficiency – by 30% at once compared to the current flagship Snapdragon 888. The Adreno GPU has become 30% more powerful, and its energy efficiency has increased by 25% compared to the same Snapdragon 888.
In addition, new GPU controls have appeared for more precise tuning of the operation of games on smartphones – this is the Adreno Frame Motion Engine, which allows you to render a game with an increased FPS without increasing power consumption. The second is Elite Gaming, with which the processor finds a balance between performance and power consumption.
The new Snapgragon 8 Gen 1 features a brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon X65 modem supporting existing mmWave communication ranges up to 6 GHz. Added support for data transfer rates up to 10 Gbps. The device also boasts support for the latest Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E standards, as well as Bluetooth LE Audio, which is new to Qualcomm. In addition, the Snapdragon Sound technology has been added for AptX Lossless wireless audio transmission.
New Snapdragon processor
The company has not only worked on the processing power of the processor, but also paid attention to improving the capabilities of the camera. Thus, a new brand, Snapdragon Sight , has appeared , which will be responsible for this. In the new chip, the bit depth has been increased from 14 bits to 18, which will allow to receive 4096 times more data from the camera. The triple ISP system now allows 240 12MP photos per second, or 8K HDR video and 64MP photos at the same time, thanks to increased bandwidth up to 3.2 gigapixels per second.
In general, the chip will be able to simultaneously process data from three cameras of 36 megapixels each, as well as shoot HDR video at 30 frames per second, 4K video at 120 frames per second, or HD video in 720p at 960 (!!!) frames per second. In addition, another feature looks interesting – for example, combining up to 30 pictures into one high-quality one when shooting in the dark. For comparison, the Snapdragon 888 can only combine 6. The algorithms themselves, auto exposure, autofocus, automatic face detection, and even a special bokeh mechanism for adding portrait mode to 4K video have been improved.
Qualcomm has added new tools for maintaining the Always-On-Camera. Now developers will be able to create interesting features: for example, automatically turn off the screen when the user puts the smartphone on the table, or when they detect someone who is trying to peer into your screen, looking over his shoulder. All data from the always- on camera will remain on the device – this is what the developers are talking about. By the way, the always-on camera can be deactivated – just like a microphone.
The company also upgraded the Qualcomm Hexagon signal engine : now it has become 4 times more productive than the previous generation, and its energy efficiency has increased by 1.7 times. This module can be used for various tasks and scenarios such as camera functions. It recreates the effects of Leica lenses , certain effects in games, and more.
It is worth noting the fact that the developers paid special attention to security. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has a Trust Management Engine – a unit responsible for additional security in the device. The 7th Gen Al Engine will be able to solve machine learning problems 4 times faster than its predecessor Snapdragon 888. Google’s Android Ready SE standard will also appear, which will allow storing digital keys from cars and even documents.
The first devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be presented in December and it is already known for sure that they will be the Xiaomi 12 line. The new processor is expected to be used in OPPO and Motorola – let’s see what the new Qualcomm is capable of. By tradition, we are promised mountains of gold, but in reality everything turns out to be not so smooth.
