Qualcomm previews 28nm Snapdragon, touts 5x more speed

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Powering a significant portion of today's smartphones, Qualcomm's Snapdragon is one of the most popular SoC solutions available. The company undoubtedly hopes to maintain that momentum as the competition heats up with products like Nvidia's dual-core Cortex A9-based Tegra 2, and today it shared details on one of its next-generation Snapdragon chips, the MSM8960.

The overhauled SoC utilizes 28nm fabrication tech and features a new architecture that promises more speed in addition to the usual improved power efficiency. The updated architecture provides speed increase of up to 3x, while another 2x boost is expected from the inclusion of a second processing core. Despite that extra muscle, the package consumes up to 75% less power.

Along with the processor changes, Qualcomm's MSM8960 packs an Adreno 3xx GPU that boasts a 4x increase in graphics performance over the Adreno 130. The new GPU supposedly offers speed on par with Xbox 360 and PS3, compared to the first-gen chip, which is compared to the PSP or DS. MSM8960 also supports LTE, 3G, WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth and FM connectivity.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41199-qualcomm-previews-28nm-snapdragon-touts-5x-more-speed.html

 

[Guest]

On Par with XBOX360 and PS3? OMG I Need to See This

 

[princeton]

It isn't unbelievable though. It's simply showing how old and pathetic consoles were even in their design stages.

 

[Acespaces]

The next Android phone shall be dual-core I predict it.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

princeton said:
It isn't unbelievable though. It's simply showing how old and pathetic consoles were even in their design stages.

Were?

Ok then...

My humor attempt aside, this is good news. I imagine if tablets catch on, having more power for Windows 7 powered tablets will be a huge benefit. Right now W7 just isn't streamlined enough for the limited power a tablet processor can provide.

 

[Guest]

"It isn't unbelievable though. It's simply showing how old and pathetic consoles were even in their design stages."

Wow you're really smart aren't you? Compare technology dating 5-6 years ago to the ones of today.

 

[Leeky]

I'm still getting used to the idea that my HTC has a 1GHz processor fitted inside it. Christ my laptop only has a single core 1.4GHz CPU! :haha:

 

[Regenweald]

Leeky said:
I'm still getting used to the idea that my HTC has a 1GHz processor fitted inside it. Christ my laptop only has a single core 1.4GHz CPU! :haha:

But you also need to remember that Ghz and architecture are very different. A processor can be plugging along at 3Ghz but have circles run around it by a more efficient arch at 2Ghz. Sometimes, cranking up the Hz only serves as a power drain with no viable performance improvement. That said, 1Ghz in a smartphone is still amazing, and next year they look to be shifting to high gear....

 

[Leeky]

But you also need to remember that Ghz and architecture are very different. A processor can be plugging along at 3Ghz but have circles run around it by a more efficient arch at 2Ghz. Sometimes, cranking up the Hz only serves as a power drain with no viable performance improvement. That said, 1Ghz in a smartphone is still amazing, and next year they look to be shifting to high gear....

Thats a very good point. I suppose I was probably looking at it a bit simply. :haha:

 

[Archean]

I hope by the time this baby start getting into newer smart phones, WP7 have matured as a platform, so I can have couple of good reasons to dump this Cortex A8 1Ghz (I think it is called Hummingbird) processor based android phone

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

Dual-core processors, more powerful GPUs and higher power efficiency. All of these are great strides in the evolution of smartphones and highly desired features in the next generation of phones. I just hope that the manufacturers don't forget to build in the features which allow us to easily make a phone call, to send a simple text message and to take a quick picture. The stuff that we used to do when we first starting using mobile phones .

 

[Guest]

though i agree that when consoles came out theyre graphics were apthetic however nice on the tv pc's were blwing them away before they were out for a year i do believe the article was making a comparison of the first gen snapdragon to the second gen snapdragon by stateing the difference is as big as the difference between a psp and a xbox360/ps3

 

[Puiu]

it's very hard to believe that a smartphone could have the same gpu power as the ps3/xbox360. but just by looking at the numbers i can tell that future smartphones will be extremely powerful. and we can only go up from here.

 

[Regenweald]

With this, and some of the other processors in the pipeline, I think once the first device is launched, we would have effectively come to the age of super-phones. Or rather super-devices. I'd love to own a device with this chip at its core.

 

[9Nails]

Guest said:
On Par with XBOX360 and PS3? OMG I Need to See This

I think there's a bit of marketing in their words. I'm reading that their speed is on par with the other consoles. So if those consoles have a 700 MHz GPU, then this GPU runs about the same speed. (I'm just guessing at the numbers here folks.) I don't think this goes to say that their GPU can compute and return the same images that these systems can.

I think it's like saying that they have a car as fast as another team on the track. But that team that they're comparing themselves to might have 60 identical cars on the track. So you're probably still better off betting that the Xbox or PS3 will give you the winning performance.

 

[Jibberish18]

Being at .22nm, what sort of power leakage will be present? I remember this was always an issue with AMD and Intel. I know Intel works some magic at .34 nm but .22? Same thing goes for SSD's. The smaller, the more errors it develops.

 

[princeton]

Guest said:
"It isn't unbelievable though. It's simply showing how old and pathetic consoles were even in their design stages."

Wow you're really smart aren't you? Compare technology dating 5-6 years ago to the ones of today.

That isn't the point. The point is that consoles are always called "current gen" P.S. It the tech was old in design stages. They knew this when they made them. My comment was referring to the original comment acting like it was some impossible spectacular feat.