Less than a year after its launch, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is already seeing its even more powerful successor arrive. No room for wait-and-see on the high end.
Qualcomm presented its latest high-end SoC for smartphones, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, at the Snapdragon Summit 2022. Nothing very sibylline, this chip succeeds the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 formalized at the end of 2021 and which had received a refresh with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in May 2022. The American designer is putting the package on AI in particular.
Ray tracing and INT4
With its 4 nm engraving made by Samsung, its 8 CPU cores, its Adreno 730 GPU and its “AI engine” of 7e generation, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 had already set the bar relatively high. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 logically pushes the slider a few notches higher. Qualcomm notably promises AI performance up to 4.35x higher as well as the integration of hardware support for ray tracing.
The new SoC is still engraved in 4 nm, directly by TSMC this time. We find a classic Kryo CPU and Adreno GPU configuration. The CPU retains 8 cores, but in a slightly different configuration than before: the Prime Arm Cortex-X2 core gives way to the more powerful Arm Cortex-X3 core clocked at 3.2 GHz. In addition, this core is now supported by 4 Performance cores and 3 Efficiency cores, not specified, but which reach 2.8 and 2 GHz respectively. A configuration in 1 + 4 + 3 rather than in 1 + 3 + 4, therefore. According to Qualcomm, the Kryo processor improves performance by up to 35% while the new micro-architecture enables up to 40% better power efficiency.
As often, the American firm does not detail the GPU configuration. It limits itself to mentioning hardware acceleration of real-time ray tracing and the fact that it is the first mobile platform to support the Vulkan 1.3 API. Regarding ray tracing on smartphones, remember that Samsung has also been doing it for a few months with its Exynos 2200, without much success. We can’t wait to see if Qualcomm’s attempt proves more successful. Either way, the company reports 25% better performance and 45% better power efficiency for its Adreno GPU.
Qualcomm is also highlighting the AI capabilities of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, with performance likely to be multiplied by 4.35x. The company also announces support for INT4, a first for its mobile solutions portfolio.
Up to 200MP and Wi-Fi 7
AI is also coming to the side of the 18-bit Qualcomm Spectra ISP, presented by the company as its first camera processor with artificial intelligence. The chip is able to recognize in real time different elements of a scene, such as faces or clothes, in order to improve the quality of the rendering. It handles 8K HDR 10-bit video capture and a 200MP photo sensor.
Finally, in terms of connectivity, we of course find a 5G modem, in this case the X70, capable of managing DSDA (Dual-SIM Dual-Active), as well as support for Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 7. allowing up to 5.8 Gbits/s.
Qualcomm specifies that the first smartphones powered by this Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will arrive before the end of the year.
Source : Qualcomm
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