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During the Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced its latest flagship chipset, which will be used in mobile phones from 2022.
This is the largest chipset release for Android users this year, but because many details have been leaked, the actual release did not bring much excitement.
I have compared Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to Mediatek Dimensity 9000, But I will introduce some additional details here.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 specifications comparison
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 | MediaTek Dimensity 9000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing process | 4nm Samsung | 5nm (5LPE) Samsung | 4nm TSMC |
| CPU | 1 x Arm Cortex-X2 @ 3.0 GHz with 1024KB pL2 3 x ArmCortex-A710 @ 2.5 GHz with 3x512KB pL2 4 x Arm Cortex-A510 @ 1.8GHz with 2x unknown sL2 |
1 x Arm Cortex-X1 @ 2.84 GHz with 1024KB pL2 3 x ArmCortex-A78 @ 2.32 GHz with 3x512KB pL2 4 x Arm Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz with 2x 4x128KB pL2 |
1 x Arm Cortex-X2 @ 3.05 GHz 3 x ArmCortex-A710 @ 2.85 GHz 4 x Arm Cortex-A510 @ 1.8 GHz |
| Graphics processor | Adrenaline | Adrenocortical hormone 660 @ 840MHz | ARM Mali-G710 MC10 |
| memory | 4x 16 bit 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB/s 4MB system cache |
4x 16-bit channels 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB/s 4MB system level cache |
4x 16 bit 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB/s 3750MHz LPDDR5X / 60.0GB/s = 7500Mbps support 6MB system cache |
| Internet Service Provider | Triple 18-bit spectrum ISP 1x 200MP or 108MP with ZSL 64+36MP with ZSL 3x 36MP with ZSL 8K HDR video and 64MP continuous shooting |
Triple 14-bit Spectra 580 ISP 1x 200MP or 84MP with ZSL 64+25MP with ZSL 3x 28MP with ZSL 4K video and 64MP burst capture |
Imagine 790 A new generation of triple 18-bit ISP 9GPix/s processing throughput Single sensor up to 320MP Triple sensor 32+32+32MP |
| Nuclear Industry Unit | hexagon | Hex 780 | 5th generation 4+2 core APU |
| media | 8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265
Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 720p960 unlimited recording No AV1 decoding |
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265 Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG |
8K30 & 4K120 encoding & 8K60 decoding H.265/HEVC, H.264, VP9 8K30 AV1 decoding |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.2 Wireless 6E |
Bluetooth 5.2 Wireless 6E |
Bluetooth 5.3 Wireless 6E |
| modem | Integrated X65 5G NR Sub-6 + millimeter wave DL = 10000 Mbps UL = 3000 Mbps |
Integrated X60 5G NR Sub-6 + millimeter wave DL = 7500 Mbps UL = 3000 Mbps |
LTE category 24/18 5G NR Sub-6 |
CPU / GPU / manufacturing process
There is not much content here, because this is all the information leaked before. Everything is confirmed now.
Qualcomm will continue to use Samsung’s manufacturing process, from 5nm to 4nm manufacturing process. Qualcomm has not confirmed that this is 4LPE, but it is very likely.
The CPU/GPU has seen typical generational improvements. The CPU configuration is more interesting. The ARM CPU core is transferred to the new Armv9 generation. Although Big Nuclear and China Nuclear are their successors last year, they have made more potential adjustments than usual. The biggest change is the small core.
The big X1 core is used for X2, which claims to be 20% higher in performance or 30% energy-saving compared to X1. Then it is configured with 1MB L2 cache.
Cortex-A78 moved to Cortex-A710, they each get 512KB L2 cache.
The small core was finally greatly improved and moved to the new Cortex-A510.They work in the same way as Snapdragon 888 Or Dimensity 9000 Cortex-A510 core. They use merged cores, where there are two Cortex-A510 complexes, each complex contains two Cortex-A510 cores, and then each complex shares resources such as L2 cache. This is claimed to be more effective, and in theory, it should allow a single core to access a larger L2 cache. Qualcomm has not confirmed the L2 cache, but I hope it is at least 2x256KB.
GPU did not get much attention, they removed the code name of the number, so now it’s just Andreno.
Qualcomm claims that under the same performance as the Snapdragon 888, the peak performance of the GPU is increased by 30%, or the power consumption is reduced by 25%.
ISP / camera / media
ISP and imaging functions are areas where we get some new details. Qualcomm launched Snapdragon Sight, which will provide significant improvements for the entire ISP.
ISP can now achieve 14-bit color depth of 18 bits per channel on SD888. This now has 2x interlaced HDR capture, and you can take three exposures at once and merge them into one to provide a higher bit depth result.
The new bit depth adds 4 stops in the dynamic range, significantly improving the quality of photos taken under contrasting or challenging lighting.
The night mode has also been greatly improved, and now up to 30 images can be stacked, providing a 5x improvement in low-light performance.
The new chip supports 8K HDR recording, but there is not much change compared with SD888.
Perhaps the biggest revelation is the lack of support for AV1 decoding. Mediatek was the only company to do this last year, and since then, as Google/YouTube and Netflix have adopted this new codec, the adoption rate of this new codec has increased. As the two largest streaming media platforms at present, the lack of support puts Qualcomm at a significant disadvantage compared with MediaTek.
It is worth noting that Qualcomm is not a member of the Open Media Alliance, but supports VVC/H.266 and EVC. Qualcomm gets license fees from VVC, and IP/licenses account for a large portion of Qualcomm’s revenue, so no genius is needed to figure out why they don’t want to support AV1.
Artificial intelligence improvements
New 7day The Gen AI engine brings the typical iterative improvement of SD888. The Qualcomm Hexagon processor has a tensor accelerator that is 2 times faster than SD888, 2 times larger shared memory, and 70% energy efficiency.
modem
Qualcomm switched from the X60 integrated model to the new X65, which is a 3GPP Release 16 compatible modem. There are various improvements, but the main improvements are theoretical 10000 Mbps download and 7500 Mbps.
Other features
For WiFi, you will get the same FastConnect 6900 system, which already supports Wireless 6E It uses 2×2 radio and 8-stream MU-MIMO, so there is not much room for improvement.
However, it only supports Bluetooth 5.2 and does not support the 5.3 used by the new MediaTek.
Things like audio and GPS seem to be the same as the previous generation.
overall
Qualcomm apparently insisted on what they knew best, and did not make any major changes to the overall chipset.
It will almost certainly become the best chipset this year, and definitely the chipset used in the best and most expensive mobile phones.
The problem is that they have other companies close behind.
MediaTek has made rapid progress in the past 2-3 years. They may not have a competitive chipset last year, but the Dimensity 1200 provides excellent performance at a low price. This year, at least according to the specifications, their chipset will be on par with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It has several specifications that are better than Qualcomm, and theoretically Dimensity 9000 may end up with a better chipset (I will believe it when I see it).
Then there is Samsung, they are expected to transfer the GPU to AMD. The rest of the chipset may rival Qualcomm, and if their new partnership with AMD goes well, they may end up with a better chipset than Qualcomm.
Obviously, it is too early to determine how things will develop. Just because the chipset looks good on paper does not mean that it will perform the same in real life.
