Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 Promises Big Improvements in Cameras, Gaming, and More

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use. Most of the popular Android smartphones in the world use Qualcomm chips, and the best among them always have the latest and greatest 800-series system-on-a-chip (SoC). Qualcomm has finally released specs and features for its upcoming flagship 865 ARM chip, which will power premium phones like the Galaxy S11 in 2020. Qualcomm has made extensive changes to the display support, AI, and camera technology, but the CPU setup is only slightly updated. A Small Step for CPUsThe Snapdragon 865 again has eight Kryo CPU cores, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising is how little Qualcomm wants to talk about this part of its new chip. It says the new CPU cores offer a 25 percent improvement in both power efficiency and performance in certain scenarios. Real-life improvements might be minimal, though. Qualcomm now refers to the CPU cluster simply as the Kryo 585 rather than naming each core. There are four high-performance cores based on the ARM Cortex A77 design, one of which is the “prime core” that can run as fast as 2.84GHz (the others top out at 2.4GHz). The remaining four cores are based on the Cortex A55, which are slower but more efficient. The Snapdragon 865 is still using a 7nm TSMC process node. It will probably remain behind Apple’s A-series chips in absolute CPU performance, but Qualcomm is looking elsewhere to boost its new chip. One Giant Leap for GPUsQualcomm is pushing gaming hard with the Snapdragon 865. The chip’s new Adreno 650 renders graphics 25 percent faster while using 35 percent less power. Supposedly, the Adreno 650 can remain at peak processing speed for much longer because of the improved thermal efficiency. The Snapdragon 865 can even turn down the clock on other components to keep the GPU running at maximum speed during a gaming session. The 865 will undoubtedly get optimized drivers for Fortnite.The company has also designed this chip to support updateable GPU drivers. That means it will be able to work with developers to optimize for a game, and then push out updated drivers via the Play Store. The new Adreno will also enable a new generation of display technology. OEMs will be able to tune displays with refresh rates as high as 144Hz — a rumored feature of the Galaxy S11. We’ve seen 90Hz and even 120Hz on a few devices from Google, OnePlus, and Razer, but the new Snapdragon chip will make high refresh rates mainstream. Smarter AIQualcomm has stepped up its AI game in the Snapdragon 865 with a new Hexagon 698 DSP. When you hear chip companies talk about their dedicated AI processing cores, they’re actually talking about DSPs (digital signal processors). These chips are especially suited to machine learning and neural network applications, and the DSP in the 865 is twice as powerful as the one in the Snapdragon 855. Qualcomm claims the Hexagon 698 supports 15 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) and has 3MB of dedicated L3
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