Mobile World Congress is still a couple of weeks away but Qualcomm has jumped the gun announcing new chips for its midrange 400 and 600 families. As usual, some features usually reserved for higher-end models are now trickling down the product line, like octa-core CPUs in the upcoming Snapdragon 425 and 415, as well as 4K video in the new 620 and 618 chips.

The latter two use ARM's newly-released Cortex-A72 cores promise to deliver improved performance and power savings, paired with Cortex-A53 cores in different configurations. Specifically, the Snapdragon 620 will have four A72 and four A53 cores while the Snapdragon 618 will have two A72 cores and four A53 cores. Both SoCs are 64-bit compatible, feature dual-channel LPDDR3, and support features like 4K video recording, 2K display support, QuickCharge 2.0 and dual image signal processors (ISPs) for up to two 13MP cameras.

Qualcomm says the chips use a "next-generation Qualcomm Adreno GPU”, but it hasn’t shared any more details about their capabilities beyond that. Lastly, connectivity-wise, both 600-series chips include Qualcomm's X8 LTE modems, capable of 300Mbps download and 100Mbps upload speeds.

Moving down the ladder both the Snapdragon 425 and 415 will have eight Cortex-A53 cores -- up from the quad-core designs the 400 and 410 used. They’re also 64-bit compatible and support the ARMv8 instruction set.

In terms of features these also support dual ISPs, which Qualcomm claims will improve cameras in mid- and low-end phones, as well as Quick Charge 2.0. Both will go a step up in the graphics front with an Adreno 405 GPU, but maximum resolution for integrated displays remains the same at 1920×1200.

Where these two dire is in LTE speed. While the 425 maintains the same X8 modem of the Snapdragon 618 and 620, the 415 goes a step down to the X5, which supports download and upload speeds of 150Mbps and 50Mbps.

The company says phones based on the new Snapdragon 415 SoC should start appearing during the first half of the year. The Snapdragon 425 as well as the 618 and 620 will show up in devices in the second half of 2015.