Qualcomm has finally taken the wraps off its new flagship smartphone processor: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It will be used in 2022 smartphones by companies like Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, OnePlus, etc. This is the successor to last year’s Snapdragon 888, the new chip is the first chipset to bear Qualcomm’s new naming scheme.
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The company changed its triple-digit numbering system that Qualcomm has previously used for new, generation-based monikers. Just like every other new processor, Qualcomm is promising some major upgrades in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with better performance, camera technology, AI capabilities, security, and 5G.
As expected, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the first chip from Qualcomm to use the latest Armv9 architecture from Arm. Specifically, the new eight-core Kryo CPU will feature a single prime core based on the Cortex-X2 at 3.0GHz, along with three performance cores based on Cortex-A710 at 2.5GHz, and a quartet of efficiency cores based on the Cortex-A510 design at 1.8GHz. Additionally, the new chip jumps to a 4nm process, from the 5nm process on which the Snapdragon 888 was built.
Qualcomm promises that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will offer up to 20 percent better performance and up to 30 percent more power efficiency over last year’s model.
Meanwhile, the new Adreno GPU (much like the Gen 1’s Kryo CPU, Qualcomm didn’t give a specific number for the updated hardware here) promises to offer 30 percent faster graphics rendering, in addition to 25 percent better power efficiency compared to the Snapdragon 888. It’ll also offer a new GPU control panel for fine-tuning how games are running on your phone.
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For the first time on a Qualcomm chip, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the Snapdragon X65 modem, which promises a whole suite of 5G features and firsts. As Qualcomm’s fourth-generation 5G modem, it builds on the existing mmWave and sub-6GHz compatibility that came before, adding support for up to 10Gbps speeds and the latest 3GPP Release 16 specification. As is always the case, you almost certainly won’t actually see that kind of speed in the real world.
The new chip also supports Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth LE Audio (a first for Qualcomm), and the company’s Snapdragon Sound technology for enabling AptX Lossless wireless audio.
As is traditional for Qualcomm’s top-tier processor, the company is putting a big emphasis on its beefed-up camera capabilities, which the company is bundling together for the first time under a new “Snapdragon Sight” brand.
