Qualcomm reveals speedy next-gen Snapdragon SoC lineup

Shawn Knight

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qualcomm snapdragon chips promise lightning fast phones snapdragon

Qualcomm has revealed specifications for two new Snapdragon mobile chips they plan to push in 2015. Or in other words, they’ve just given you yet another reason to regret purchasing that smartphone you just bought.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and 808 are both built on the 20-nanometer manufacturing process and feature 64-bit technology. The octa-core 810 is comprised of four Cortex-A57 cores to handle power-intensive tasks alongside four Cortex-A53 cores designed for less intensive work to help conserve battery power.

This powerhouse chip will support 4K resolution displays and LPDDR4 RAM which is faster and more efficient than the current standard. It’ll also be able to handle voice activation and dual Image Signal Processors for improved imaging.

On the GPU front, the Adreno 430 chip is said to offer 30 percent better performance than the 420 it’ll replace. Elsewhere we find Cat 6 LTE-Advanced and a 2-stream multi-user MIMO setup for improved Wi-Fi connectivity.

The 808, meanwhile, will ship with six cores (two Cortex-A57 and four Cortex-A53), Adreno 418 graphics and support for 2K resolution screens. Even as a mid-range chip, it’s certainly no slouch.

Qualcomm typically doesn’t share its roadmap this early in the process but considering increased competition from the likes of Intel, MediaTek and Nvidia, it isn’t really that much of a surprise that they are showing their hand sooner rather than later.

Best yet, the chips are expected to show up in flagship Android devices starting early next year.

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Very peculiar idea with the Octo-Core chip, having a 4 core part that are all power and 4 cores that are for smaller tasks is going to be interesting. Anxious to see one of these chips and try programming on one to see what kind of power can be pulled. I believe the best part is that the GPU is getting such a hefty boost.
 
Very peculiar idea with the Octo-Core chip, having a 4 core part that are all power and 4 cores that are for smaller tasks is going to be interesting. Anxious to see one of these chips and try programming on one to see what kind of power can be pulled. I believe the best part is that the GPU is getting such a hefty boost.
The 8 core concept isnt new though since Samsung has already implemented it in their 8 core CPUs. The first gen one was in the S4 (this model isnt available in the US though. The US variant runs a Snapdragon).
 
Very peculiar idea with the Octo-Core chip, having a 4 core part that are all power and 4 cores that are for smaller tasks is going to be interesting. Anxious to see one of these chips and try programming on one to see what kind of power can be pulled. I believe the best part is that the GPU is getting such a hefty boost.
Multi core chips have been out on the pc for years and they still have not released many optimised applications that actually make good use of the extra horse power. This is exactly why I laugh at people claiming they have a quad core phone and how great it is compared to the next guys phone, or in this case octa core even though that's not quite an accurate description. What makes you think, given a fully equipped PC with much broader resources and people with years more experience developing for them, that a phone will be any better? No, these ever increasing core counts and MHz bumps are simply marketing rhetoric to sell the gullible masses the next "greatest" thing.
 
Oh, and before you say that I'm against innovation, no I'm not, but progress for progresses sake is not progress at all. There's nothing wrong with pushing the boundaries, but these companies board of directors insist on high profits, and so the "progress" wheel starts turning, but for no other real reason, not because they really want to, or we would already be working with Desktop class chips in our phones. There is just no profit in it to give the masses the best and greatest upfront, but much more in delaying and stringing it our with these pointless incremental upgrades. That's my opinion anyways. The 2 year old tech I have in my phone is still doing wonders, but when they can make a phone that doubles as my PC, then, and only then will I be impressed, not this octa core ARM crap.
 
Nice chips, but 2015 might as well be expressed as a year away. So the phone you get today still has legs to carry you a year at least. And if today's upgrade is better than your old phone then I wouldn't complain. It will take some while before developers feel that the market for software which take advantage of these higher-end CPU's has enough sales to justify the development costs.

Still, I find it incredible that these little pocket toys which travel with us are surpassing processing, display, and GPU capabilities of laptops from just few years ago.
 
Oh, and before you say that I'm against innovation, no I'm not, but progress for progresses sake is not progress at all. There's nothing wrong with pushing the boundaries, but these companies board of directors insist on high profits, and so the "progress" wheel starts turning, but for no other real reason, not because they really want to, or we would already be working with Desktop class chips in our phones. There is just no profit in it to give the masses the best and greatest upfront, but much more in delaying and stringing it our with these pointless incremental upgrades. That's my opinion anyways. The 2 year old tech I have in my phone is still doing wonders, but when they can make a phone that doubles as my PC, then, and only then will I be impressed, not this octa core ARM crap.

Please explain to me and to our viewing audience how you are ever going to replace a desktop PC with a mobile phone, in particular the monitor? Sure, I can see a mobile phone CPU having the equivalent horsepower of a current desktop CPU 3-5 years down the road. But how do you package a 21.5", 23.6", or even a 27" 1920x1080 desktop monitor in a mobile space? The only way I can see it is with some type of video projection system. Maybe camping sites or even internet cafes can host the huge whitescreens or (more expensively actual huge monitors) and people can plug in their mobile phones? That's the only way I can visualize your dream having any meaning. But you lose some of the mobility if you have to go to specific places to get your viewing functionality. So this begs the question, if you can't enjoy an UHD 4k Blu-Ray movie in a mobile device, or an Unreal Engine 4 video game at 1920x1080 resolution on a huge color monitor what is point of the phone being able to push that many pixels to begin with? I refuse to watch movies on an anything less than what I have too and as of the past 3+ years that device has been no less than 21.5" large. Is there anybody who actually watches HD movies on a tiny cellphone and enjoys it? My cellphone has proved itself to be more handy than I thought it could be even a year ago. But it still can't and probably never will be able to replace my desktop monitors. Sure, the huge dinosaur boxes are becoming extinct thanks to Intels NUCs and other SFF devices. But the joy and benefits of a huge desktop screen aren't as easily replaced by a mobile device. Unless, they literally start making 21.5" tablets as a standard screen size.

I also think your wrong when you say that the people who constantly push technology innovation don't do it because they really want to is not true. I think passion is the only thing that can truly drive innovation. You have to be pretty smart to do what these people do.

I also don't think there is a conspiracy to dole out technological innovation. The pace of technological innovation has dropped to a much slower pace than in the past 20 years because man is at the very boundaries of technological innovation. We don't have 1TB Blu-Ray discs yet because they don't know how to make them. They have an idea of how to make them. But those ideas might not translate into reality when the time comes and so they have to tweak and refine their exact approach and that takes time. Competition also drives innovation. If Sony could release a 1TB Blu-Ray disc today they would be stupid not to capitalize on it and get it to market to make their millions. Someone else might 'stumble' onto a technology which gives us 5TB Blu-Ray discs and cause Sonys 1TB BD-R discs to become obsolete instantly. I don't think anybody wants to sit around and take that chance.

The beauty of a free market is that you don't have to purchase anything you don't want too. Well except Obamacare. If you think that Intel and Seagate and Samsung are doleing there technology out solely to bleed you dry you don't have to buy it. See the beauty?
 
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Oh, and before you say that I'm against innovation, no I'm not, but progress for progresses sake is not progress at all. There's nothing wrong with pushing the boundaries, but these companies board of directors insist on high profits, and so the "progress" wheel starts turning, but for no other real reason, not because they really want to, or we would already be working with Desktop class chips in our phones. There is just no profit in it to give the masses the best and greatest upfront, but much more in delaying and stringing it our with these pointless incremental upgrades. That's my opinion anyways. The 2 year old tech I have in my phone is still doing wonders, but when they can make a phone that doubles as my PC, then, and only then will I be impressed, not this octa core ARM crap.

Please explain to me and to our viewing audience how you are ever going to replace a desktop PC with a mobile phone, in particular the monitor? Sure, I can see a mobile phone CPU having the equivalent horsepower of a current desktop CPU 3-5 years down the road. But how do you package a 21.5", 23.6", or even a 27" 1920x1080 desktop monitor in a mobile space? The only way I can see it is with some type of video projection system. Maybe camping sites or even internet cafes can host the huge whitescreens or (more expensively actual huge monitors) and people can plug in their mobile phones? That's the only way I can visualize your dream having any meaning. But you lose some of the mobility if you have to go to specific places to get your viewing functionality. So this begs the question, if you can't enjoy an UHD 4k Blu-Ray movie in a mobile device, or an Unreal Engine 4 video game at 1920x1080 resolution on a huge color monitor what is point of the phone being able to push that many pixels to begin with? I refuse to watch movies on an anything less than what I have too and as of the past 3+ years that device has been no less than 21.5" large. Is there anybody who actually watches HD movies on a tiny cellphone and enjoys it? My cellphone has proved itself to be more handy than I thought it could be even a year ago. But it still can't and probably never will be able to replace my desktop monitors. Sure, the huge dinosaur boxes are becoming extinct thanks to Intels NUCs and other SFF devices. But the joy and benefits of a huge desktop screen aren't as easily replaced by a mobile device. Unless, they literally start making 21.5" tablets as a standard screen size.

I also think your wrong when you say that the people who constantly push technology innovation don't do it because they really want to is not true. I think passion is the only thing that can truly drive innovation. You have to be pretty smart to do what these people do.

I also don't think there is a conspiracy to dole out technological innovation. The pace of technological innovation has dropped to a much slower pace than in the past 20 years because man is at the very boundaries of technological innovation. We don't have 1TB Blu-Ray discs yet because they don't know how to make them. They have an idea of how to make them. But those ideas might not translate into reality when the time comes and so they have to tweak and refine their exact approach and that takes time. Competition also drives innovation. If Sony could release a 1TB Blu-Ray disc today they would be stupid not to capitalize on it and get it to market to make their millions. Someone else might 'stumble' onto a technology which gives us 5TB Blu-Ray discs and cause Sonys 1TB BD-R discs to become obsolete instantly. I don't think anybody wants to sit around and take that chance.

The beauty of a free market is that you don't have to purchase anything you don't want too. Well except Obamacare. If you think that Intel and Seagate and Samsung are doleing there technology out solely to bleed you dry you don't have to buy it. See the beauty?
Are you sure you never had a hand in helping Google draft that 1928 page letter to the USPTO? :)
 
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