Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 865+: Breaking the 3GHz Threshold
by Andrei Frumusanu on July 8, 2020 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Qualcomm
- SoCs
- Snapdragon 865
- future-u
Today Qualcomm is announcing an update to its extremely successful Snapdragon 865 SoC: the new Snapdragon 865+. The Snapdragon 865 had already seen tremendous success with over 140 different design wins, powering some of the best Android smartphone devices this year. We’re past the hectic spring release cycle of devices, and much like last year with the S855+, for the summer and autumn release cycle, Qualcomm is providing vendors with the option for a higher-performance binned variant of the chip, the new S865+. As a bit of a arbitrary, but also important characteristic of the new chip is that this is the first ever mobile silicon to finally pass the 3GHz frequency mark.
Qualcomm Snapdragon Flagship SoCs 2020 | |||
SoC | Snapdragon 865 |
Snapdragon 865+ |
|
CPU | 1x Cortex A77 @ 2.84GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Cortex A77 @ 2.42GHz 3x256KB pL2 4x Cortex A55 @ 1.80GHz 4x128KB pL2 4MB sL3 @ ?MHz |
1x Cortex A77 @ 3.1GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Cortex A77 @ 2.42GHz 3x256KB pL2 4x Cortex A55 @ 1.80GHz 4x128KB pL2 4MB sL3 @ ?MHz |
|
GPU | Adreno 650 @ 587 MHz | Adreno 650 @ ? +10% Perf |
|
DSP / NPU | Hexagon 698 15 TOPS AI (Total CPU+GPU+HVX+Tensor) |
||
Memory Controller |
4x 16-bit CH @ 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 33.4GB/s or @ 2750MHz LPDDR5 / 44.0GB/s 3MB system level cache |
||
ISP/Camera | Dual 14-bit Spectra 480 ISP 1x 200MP 64MP ZSL or 2x 25MP ZSL 4K video & 64MP burst capture |
||
Encode/ Decode |
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265 Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 720p960 infinite recording |
||
Integrated Modem | none (Paired with external X55 only) (LTE Category 24/22) DL = 2500 Mbps 7x20MHz CA, 1024-QAM UL = 316 Mbps 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) DL = 7000 Mbps UL = 3000 Mbps |
||
Mfc. Process | TSMC 7nm (N7P) |
We’ve come to know the Snapdragon 865 quite well over the last few months, detailing the performance of the chipset in our initial benchmark articles as well as a more extensive deep-dive in our Galaxy S20 review. The new Snapdragon 865+ is a new binned variant of the same chipset with higher peak frequencies on the part of the “prime” CPU as well as the GPU, promising +10% performance on both aspects.
The First Mobile Silicon to Break Past 3GHz – 3.1GHz Even
Whilst in relative terms the new chipset’s +10% clock improvement isn’t all that earth-shattering, in absolute terms it finally allows the new Snapdragon 865+ to be the first mobile SoC to break past the 3GHz threshold, slightly exceeding that mark at a peak 3.1GHz frequency. Ever since the Cortex-A75 generation we’ve seen Arm make claims about their CPU microarchitectures achieving such high clock frequencies – however in all those years actual silicon products by vendors never really managed to quite get that close in commercial mass-production designs.
We’ve had a chat with Qualcomm’s SVP and GM of mobile business Alex Katouzian, about how Qualcomm achieved this, and fundamentally it’s a combination of aggressive physical design of the product as well as improving manufacturing yields during the product’s lifecycle. Katouzian explained that they would have been able to achieve these frequencies on the vanilla Snapdragon 865 – but they would have had a lower quantity of products being able to meet this mark due to manufacturing variations. Yield improvements during the lifecycle of the Snapdragon 865 means that the company is able to offer this higher frequency variant now.
For context, in the mobile world, usually SoC SKUs are binned not by performance (clock-frequency), but by power (voltage variations). This comes in contrast to the desktop and server world where one single silicon design is binned by different performance SKUs, varying in frequencies or even functional blocks. In a sense, Qualcomm’s 855+ and 865+ are SKUs that expand the product line in the way that usual PC silicon vendors do. Other mobile vendors such as MediaTek for example also take advantage of such product segmentation by releasing a single silicon design as multiple product SKUs.
As to what this means for the power and efficiency of the new Snapdragon 865+: There will be a power increase to reach the higher frequencies, however this will only be linear with the increased clock speed, meaning energy efficiency of the new SoC will maintain the same excellent levels of that of the Snapdragon 865, so battery life will not be affected.
More + Designs This Year
This mid-year refresh was only introduced last year with the Snapdragon 855+, and while we’ve seen some vendors opt for the upgrade in their latest device releases, uptake was rather limited, with only a few handful more prominent devices such as the ASUS ROG Phone II.
This year, Qualcomm tells us that we should be expecting more adoption for the refreshed silicon, with more design wins. Amongst the publicly announced platforms today is naturally the AUSS ROG Phone 3, with full details on the phone to follow in the next couple of weeks. Lenovo is also part of the launch partners, promising to bring to market a smartphone under the Lenovo Legion branding.
Amongst other new novelties of the Snapdragon 865+ platform is the ability for vendors to bundle with the new FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi chips from Qualcomm, the company’s new Wi-Fi 6 chipsets with 6GHz band capability (Wi-Fi 6E).
We’re looking forward to devices with the new Snapdragon 865+ in the coming weeks and months.
Related Reading:
- Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 855 Plus: A Higher Bin SKU
- Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 865 and 765(G): 5G For All in 2020, All The Details
- The Snapdragon 865 Performance Preview: Setting the Stage for Flagship Android 2020
- The Samsung Galaxy S20+, S20 Ultra Exynos & Snapdragon Review: Megalomania Devices
- The Snapdragon 855 Phone Roundup: Searching for the Best Implementations
81 Comments
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caribbeanblue - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Yeah sure buddy lol, you seem to not know what the market is actually like right now. A 256GB iPhone 11 Pro Max costs $100 less than a 128GB Note20 Ultra... The idiot seems to be you but the miserable thing is that you don’t even know it. And I’m having a hard time to imagine for who not being downgrade the OS would be a dealbreaker... Android fanboy.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - link
Pray tell, how? Huawei makes their own SoCs, so does samsung. Mediateks are getting better, and qualcomm is still pushing leading performance improvements every year.Maybe you'd hav e a point if qualcomm did an intel and was sitll selling 835 performance as the 865, but that isnt the case. The current 660 series outperfoms 3 year old 800 series chips.
Mikewind Dale - Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - link
Indeed. This is a contestable market - meaning that even though it looks like a monopoly, it's a very precarious monopoly. Qualcomm knows that if they sit on their laurels for even a moment, another company will overtake them. So they continually release new, faster products.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, July 10, 2020 - link
More importantly, its not locked down like X86 is. Anyone can get a license and make their own ARM SoCs. If a monopoly did occur there would be more competitors popping out of the woodwork and take the opportunity.lmcd - Friday, July 10, 2020 - link
Modems are locked down.nandnandnand - Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - link
And if you look more broadly, there is Rockchip, Allwinner, etc. in SBCs.It will be neat to see Cortex-X1 come to SBCs, which should routinely clock above 3 GHz.
dotjaz - Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - link
It would be nice, but you probably won't for a long long time if ever. Rockchip, Amlogic and Allwinner are losers in advancement. They never had anything beyond Cortex-A55, because everything after A55 can't support 32-bit OS. And they are refusing/delaying to upgrade to Android 10 because of the 64-bit requirement.Can you even believe Amlogic is rolling out S922X, their premium SoC with big cores in a A53+A73 configuration, THIS YEAR, just to avoid going 64-bit.
nandnandnand - Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - link
Rockchip RK3588 looks pretty good to me.Those companies will get to the newest stuff when they get to it. And it will be a lot cheaper than the flagship smartphones. For higher end, I'll be watching MediaTek Dimensity. There isn't a Qualcomm monopoly.
If people are still bored by ~20% gains, they will have to wait for the monolithic 3D ARM SoCs. Hopefully those land within 5 years and not 2030.
Samus - Thursday, July 9, 2020 - link
Samsung has honestly never made a competitive low-power ARM SoC. That's why they threw in the towel on mobile Exynos.It's really a shame Apple has seemingly poached a lot of engineering talent throughout the industry to make a mobile SoC that is at the same time superior and proprietary.
kozz_man - Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - link
Any word on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note sporting this new proc?