Qualcomm: new Snapdragon is 23% faster than Cortex-A15

[Matthew DeCarlo]

MobileTechWorld has stumbled upon an internal presentation detailing Qualcomm's upcoming system-on-a-chip technology. Based on the new Krait architecture, the MSM8270, MSM8930, MSM8960, and APQ8064 Snapdragon chips are expected to sample this year with the 3G/LTE MSM8960 landing in the hands of Qualcomm's partners this quarter and the rest arriving toward the end of 2011. The SoCs will be available with a single, dual or quad-core CPU clocked up to 2.5GHz along with a dual or quad-core GPU.

According to the leaked slides, the next-generation processor will offer up to five times the performance of existing Snapdragon chips while consuming 75% less power. Although the graphics portion of the chip is said to be a next-gen Adreno GPU, there's no specific mention of an Adreno 3xx. That leaves MobileTechWorld to speculate that it's possibly an Adreno 22x. Regardless, Qualcomm claims the graphics performance will improve fourfold, delivering "console quality gaming" and support for 1080p displays.

The upcoming parts will also provide support for 7.1 Dolby surround sound, stereoscopic 3D capture and playback, a 20-megapixel camera, as well as embedded multi-mode LTE, 3G, WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM connectivity. One of the slides offered a forward-looking performance comparison between the next-gen Snapdragon and the competing Cortex-A15 SoC, as well as the dated A9 chip. Qualcomm expects to deliver up to 23% more performance than the A15 while consuming 47% less power at the same speed.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/43494-qualcomm-new-snapdragon-is-23-faster-than-cortex-a15.html

 

[Guest]

dang!!!...2.5 ghz...

 

[gwailo247]

I guess having your entire computer be a cell phone that you plug into a monitor/keyboard/mouse dock is not that gimmicky. Once they develop that portable nuclear reactor technology I saw in Fallout 3, we'll be in business.

 

[TrekExpert]

Am I reading this right? Quad core chips for phones clocked at 2.5 gigahertz by the end of 2011? That's better than is in most of the highest end laptops at the moment so that cant be right. If if is Nvidia is going to have their work cut out for them. Their road map was nowhere close to as aggressive as this.

Edit: I took another look at nvidia's road map and it is closer than I thought. It still doesn't mention the possessor frequency so I still think they will have their work cut out at them matching this.

 

[Guest]

these wont be for cell phones (quad core with gpu anyway) they are more likely aimed at tablets and laptops (maybe even low powered servers)

 

[TrekExpert]

these wont be for cell phones (quad core with gpu anyway) they are more likely aimed at tablets and laptops (maybe even low powered servers)

Even so,
this blows any tablets, net books, or even ultra-portable laptops out of the water.

 

[ET3D]

Why not phones? 75% less power definitely sounds like it's aiming to be as portable as possible. Though even if limited to tablets and laptops that should be nice. Looks like Windows 8 with its ARM support is timed right.

 

[Archean]

+1 ET3D, we are already at dual cores for cell phones, so I won't be surprised with quad cores. However, major issues lies with current technologies of batteries, which need to improve significantly to keep up with all this.

 

[T77]

2.5GHz!! Oh boy,my dual core is clocked at 2.8GHz....
I feel that 20M is just an overkill,its not needed as it will just add to the weight and drain the battery as well.The "console quality gaming" remains to be seen...

 

[ebolamonkey3]

Imagine one of these in the Asus Transformer 2

Now Google just needs to give Android more productivity applications like document/spreadsheet/presentation.

 

[Wagan8r]

TrekExpert said:
Am I reading this right? Quad core chips for phones clocked at 2.5 gigahertz by the end of 2011? That's better than is in most of the highest end laptops at the moment so that cant be right. If if is Nvidia is going to have their work cut out for them. Their road map was nowhere close to as aggressive as this.

Don't be so enamored by the 2.5GHz clockspeed. GHz is only a small part of the equation. It is DEFINITELY not better than most laptops, let alone high end laptops. Don't kid yourself. It really doesn't even come close. As a quick example, take a 2.5 GHz Core 2 vs a Core i7 at 2.5 GHz and you will see that the Core i7 is more than double (maybe even tripple) the speed. Architecture plays an even bigger role than Hz.

 

[Wagan8r]

ebolamonkey3 said:
Imagine one of these in the Asus Transformer 2

Now Google just needs to give Android more productivity applications like document/spreadsheet/presentation.

Actually, I'd rather imagine Kal-El in the ASUS Transformer 2.

 

[Guest]

Q4, 2011: Tegra 3 (Karl El) vs. PowerVR Series 6 (Rogue) vs. Snapdragon!