It is that time of the year again when chipset maker Qualcomm unveils its latest and greatest CPUs and GPUs for upcoming flagship smartphones. Qualcomm's shiny new Snapdragon 865 is here to replace the flagship class 855 and it is packing quite a crazy amount of power in its tiny package.
And many smartphone makers are already in queue to get this CPU for its upcoming devices.
The Snapdragon 865 is designed to be 25 percent faster in core CPU performance and 20% faster GPU performance compared to the Snapdragon 855. Now that surely doesn¡¯t seem like a lot, but it¡¯s still not bad.
The processor is still in an octa-core configuration. However, with some changes in the core architecture. The primary cause for the spike in performance is with the inclusion of ARM Cortex-A77 performance cores (Snapdragon 855 had A76).
The octa-core has one primary performing core (dubbed as Kryo 585) clocked up to 2.84 GHz, 3x Performance cores (Kryo 585) clocked up to 2.4 GHz, and 4x Kryo 385 (based on Cortex-A55) Efficiency cores clocked up to 1.8 GHz to improve battery performance.
In the graphics department, you get a brand-spanking-new Adreno 650 GPU that comes with support for QHD+ resolutions with 144Hz refresh rate panels (or UHD 60Hz).?
For all the photography needs, the Snapdragon 865 gets the Spectra 480 ISP (Image Signal Processor) which supports up to 200 megapixel primary cameras (or 64 megapixels with zero shutter lag), or up to 25 megapixel dual cams, 4K HDR recording at 60fps along with 64MP burst images or 4K video recording at 120 fps slow-motion. It also supports 8K video recording at 30 fps, as well as limitless capture of 720p footage at 960fps super slow motion.
For network connectivity, the Snapdragon 865 gets its trusty X55 modem that supports both 4G and 5G networks. The modem is capable of achieving maximum download speeds of 7.5Gbps on 5G and 2.5Gbps on 4G (and uplinks of 3Gbps and 316Mbps, respectively). We should be seeing the 4G module entering Indian markets as 5G is still far away.
The Snapdragon 865 also gets support for Wi-Fi 6? along with Bluetooth 5.1, aptX TWS, aptX Adaptive, and aptX Voice. In the AI department, the Hexagon 698 and Tensor accelerator bring a 5th gen AI engine which is twice as faster than its predecessor.