As the darkness of night sets in in China tonight, Qualcomm is hosting a mobile-focused product launch event called “Snapdragon Night.” The title of the event is the announcement of the company’s new flagship SoC, Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. An update from the middle generation of their flagship smartphone SoC, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 8+ Gen 1 follows Qualcomm’s annual tradition of launching an upgrade product to enhance productivity and to give partners something new to work with in the second half of the year. And especially for this year, we are looking at a very noticeable change in Qualcomm chips.
Unlike previous generations, where Qualcomm simply released a faster gearbox than its existing silicon, for 2022 we have something more significant to talk about. Qualcomm completely changed the foundries – moving from Samsung to TSMC – and as a result launched a new matrix. Thanks to this, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 reaps something like a one-time production profit, which allows them to gain CPU and GPU performance while reducing power consumption.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Leading SoCs SoC Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU 1x Cortex-X2 @ 3.2GHz
3x Cortex-A710 @ 2.8GHz
4x Cortex-A510 @ 2.0GHz
6MB sL3
1x Cortex-X2 @ 3.0GHz
3x Cortex-A710 @ 2.5GHz
4x Cortex-A510 @ 1.8GHz
6MB sL3
Adreno GPU (10% higher clock speed) Adreno DSP / NPU Hexagon Hexagon MemoryController 4x 16-bit CH
@ 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB / s
4MB cache at the system level
ISP / Camera Triple 18-bit Spectra ISP
1x 200MP or 108MP with ZSLor64 + 36MP with ZSLor3x 36MP with ZSL
8K HDR video and 64MP serial recording
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265 encoding / decoding
Dolby Vision, HDR10 +, HDR10, HLG
720p960 endless recording
Integrated X65 modem integrated
(5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) DL = 10000 Mbps UL = 3000 Mbps
Mfc Process TSMC 4nm Samsung 4nm
Quickly getting into specs, the new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is essentially the original Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, ported from Samsung’s 4nm line to one of TSMC’s 4nm lines. Under more normal circumstances, this kind of change would probably be invisible – or at most, a fun exercise to find extreme cases – but for Qualcomm’s flagship SoC, the issue is more important.
While official sources and statements about the quality of Samsung’s 4nm process are few and far between, it is unofficially clear that Samsung’s 4nm process does not live up to expectations. This caused a cascade impact on the chips made in the process node, which led to the fact that the original Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 develops an affinity for energy consumption, and Samsung’s own Exynos 2200 does not do better. Conversely, on all accounts, TSMC’s N4 process looks great, with the optically convoluted node built on TSMC’s already successful and very productive 5nm technology.
As a result of this difference in performance between Samsung’s 4nm nodes and TSMC, Qualcomm is taking the unusual step (essentially) of transferring its high-end SoC to the TSMC factory. Which, while not strictly necessary – Qualcomm brings a lot of momentum and the 8 Gen 1 sells well – is certainly a sensible move for the company. Qualcomm faces particularly fierce competition from this generation of MediaTek, whose flagship Dimensity 9000 SoC was TSMC’s flagship 4nm product. And that leaves MediaTek with a clear advantage over the original 8 Gen 1, which Qualcomm would be happy to cancel.
Ultimately, factory switching gives Qualcomm a chance to upgrade the original 8 Gen 1 at both ends of the spectrum, leading to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. In terms of performance, the TSMC node gives them an easy way to increase CPU and clock speeds. GPU speeds for more performance. The core Cortex-X2 now has a clock speed of 7% higher, at 3.2GHz, and meanwhile the A710 and A510 clusters have noted that their clock speeds have increased even more significantly, by about 12% each. Now even the slowest A510 cores can run at 2GHz. GPU clock speeds have also been increased in a similar way, and although Qualcomm has not revealed specific clock speeds there, they have confirmed that the 8+ Gen 1 Adreno GPU is 10% higher than the original 8 Gen 1.
But if nothing else, most of Qualcomm’s profits from switching production units are invested in reducing energy consumption. Something like a sore point with 8 Gen 1, TSMC’s better 4nm process means that Qualcomm sees much lower power consumption in their SoC at iso-frequency.
Qualcomm officially claims that the energy efficiency of GPUs and CPUs has been improved by 30%. Although, as mentioned above, this is on frequency and does not take into account the higher peak clock frequencies of 8+ Gen 1. Therefore, the actual energy savings will not be so great on a peak-to-peak basis, but according to Qualcomm energy savings are still significant. Overall, the company advertises a 15% reduction in SoC power consumption in “practical use” models compared to the original 8 Gen 1, which in turn should lead to improved battery life in phones that accept the new SoC.
After that, the official specifications for 8+ Gen 1 do not reflect any significant changes in the configuration of the SoC compared to the original chip. So we’re still looking at the same integrated X65 5G modem, the same Spectra ISP provider, and the same video encoding / decoding units (sorry, gang, there’s no AV1 support yet!). So, despite assembling a new matrix for their mid-generation refresh product this year, there are no new features to talk about with 8+ Gen 1.
In terms of SoC performance, Qualcomm has officially claimed 10% improved GPU and CPU performance, thanks to the aforementioned clock speeds. Although we were unable to attend Qualcomm’s benchmarking session last week, the company’s performance data is roughly consistent with these claims. Qualcomm’s results in Geekbench 5 are several percent higher than we compared in December to the 8 Gen 1 launch event, although it is noteworthy that they did not achieve significantly higher results in PCMark. GPU performance data is similarly mixed, with some of Qualcomm’s official results coming very close to our original 8 Gen 1 results, but I’m not inclined to read too much in them, given how big a difference it makes. in GPU results compared to continuous testing. As always, the final word will have to be limited to independent third-party testing, although virtually nothing Qualcomm says is unreasonable, given the improvements in clock speed and thermal capacity gained from the transition to TSMC.
Finally, for consumers, they will be able to see the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 for the first time in the third quarter of this year. According to Qualcomm, many of the usual suspects have signed up to launch phones based on the new SoC, including Asus, Motorola, OnePlus, Honor and Xiaomi.
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