Qualcomm has launched its newest flagship SOC for smartphones at the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2021, named the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. This is the successor to this year’s Snapdragon 888/888+, and from now on, Qualcomm will be following this new naming style for its chipsets, i.e., the series + generation. This SOC comes with some major upgrades over the predecessor(s), so let’s talk about the features of this SOC in this article.
First of all, this is a SOC built on the 4nm process, just as the MediaTek Dimensity 9000. There is an 8-core CPU with one prime core, three performance cores, and four efficiency cores. Yes, the arrangement is the same as the previous generation. Compared to the previous generation, though, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 now uses ARMv9-based CPU cores. So, there is one prime Cortex-X2 core clocked at 3.0GHz, three Cortex-A710 cores clocked at 2.5GHz & four Cortex-A510 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. And yes, this configuration is similar for the CPU of Dimensity 9000 (except for the fact that the A710 cores are clocked higher in the case of MediaTek).
So, how much better is this new CPU? Well, going by Qualcomm’s claims, the new CPU offers a 20% performance boost over the CPU of Snapdragon 888. Also, you get up to 30% better power efficiency too.
One thing that Qualcomm talked about a lot was the camera improvements in this SOC. First of all, there is a new 18-bit ISP or Image Signal Processor & this is capable of capturing over 4000 times more camera data than the 14-bit ISP. Let’s stop and think of this number. This new ISP can capture 40,000% more camera data! That’s incredible. This allows capturing speeds up to 3.2 gigapixels every second. And this powerful chip supports shooting 8K HDR videos as well. And just like the previous generation, this is a triple-ISP which means you can shoot from three cameras at the same time.
There is also something called “Mega Night Mode,” which basically takes five times more images and then combines the best part captured in each image to get the best shot in low light.
Speaking of graphics performance, the new Adreno GPU offers up to 30% better performance & 25% better power savings. Qualcomm also introduced something called “Adreno Frame Motion Engine.” With this, a game can be rendered at twice the frame rate without any increase in power consumption.
In terms of connectivity, there is the new X65 5G Modem that offers peak speeds of up to 10 Gbps. And yes, this modem supports both sub-6GHz & mmWave 5G.
Finally, speaking of the first phones to launch with this SOC, Motorola is launching its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship named the Edge X30 on the 9th of December, so that is most probably the first phone to launch with this new SOC. This phone will launch first in China. Xiaomi 12 series is also coming with this chip & it is rumoured that we might see Xiaomi launching this series on the 12th of December in China. And finally, Oppo officially announced that its flagship (could be the Find X4 or X5 Pro) is coming with this chip in the first quarter of next year.