Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Revealed as the Heart of Your Next Android Flagship Phone. Six months after the launch of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Qualcomm just gave its flagship processor a mid-generation update.
Officially announced at the “Snapdragon Night” that took place in China, the new processor is expected to get a slight change in the naming convention and it is given the title Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 revealed as the Heart of Your Next Android Flagship Phone
While Qualcomm has previously received a similar mid-life update to its flagship chips, they were usually binned versions of their regular variants. The snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, however, is far more than that.
To begin with, the newer chip is expected to come from an entirely different foundry, manufactured by TSMC instead of Samsung. What this means is that the supposed mid-generation update is a bit more substantial than what we supposed mid-generation update is a bit more substantial than what we usually associate with Qualcomm’s “plus” chips.
The change of the foundry and the die translates to significant, double-digit performance gains over the snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Qualcomm claims that the snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 offers 10% Faster CPU and GPU performance than the snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Another area where the snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 scores significantly better compared to its predecessor is in its efficiency – with the new chip claiming to be 30% more efficient. The result is happening to be a processor that claims to offer about 15% power savings over the Snapdragon 8 gen 1.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Details
Qualcomm’s latest flagship processor would continue to be based on a 4nm manufacturing process – albeit this time from TSMC. This change has allowed Qualcomm to increase the GPU and CPU clock speeds by up to around 7%. The result is that the prime Cortex X2 has been clocked at 3.2 GHz (as opposed to 3 GHz on the snapdragon 8 gen 1). Similarly, the 3x Cortex A710 core now clocks at 2.8 GHz (compared to 2.5 GHz earlier).
After that, we have the 4x Cortex A-510 efficiency covers that also see a jump from around 1.8 GHz to 2 GHz. While Qualcomm is yet to reveal the clock speeds for the Adreno GPU on the snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, they already claim a 10% higher clock speed in the promotional materials.
The remaining part of the hardware is on the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 which is similar to that of its predecessor – and this includes the X65 integrated modem also. The new chip offers still offers support to the 3200 MHz LPDDR5 RAM, and the ISP used is the same, with support for a 200 MP resolution, 8K video capture, and a 64 MP burst captured. When it comes to encoding, the chip retains support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, and HLG. A glaring omission, this time around too, is the lack of support for the AV1 codec.
Release Date
In a press release announcing the launch of the snapdragon 8+ gen 1, Qualcomm has named several brands that intend to make use of the chip on upcoming devices. These include gaming-oriented brands like the ASUS (ROG), Nubia, and Blackshark, as well as the likes of iQOO, Honor, Motorola, OnePlus, OPPO, Xiaomi, and Realme.
Interestingly, Samsung happens to be a mission from the list, raising questions concerning the possibility of Samsung’s next-generation foldable devices – the much-rumored Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z flip 4 – making use of the snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip. Recent reports have talked about the possibility of these devices that features Qualcomm’s newer chips instead of the much older snapdragon 8 Gen 1. But going by Qualcomm’s press release, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
