Qualcomm is churning out these mid-range chips without a care in the world. The American chip company just announced three upper mid-range chipsets with a focus on gaming, AI, and photography. The new SoCs are the Snapdragon 665, Snapdragon 730, and Snapdragon 730G and there is a chance one or more of these processors will appear in Samsung’s new Galaxy A phones scheduled for release tomorrow.
Snapdragon 665
The Snapdragon 665 a.k.a SM6125 is an 11nm chipset made up of eight Kryo 260 cores in a 4+4 arrangement clocked at 2.0GHz. These are the same cores in the 14nm Snapdragon 636 processor but they are now on a smaller node which means better power efficiency.
The Snapdragon 665 puts AI at the forefront thanks to the Adreno 610 AIE GPU. The on-board third-generation AI is to work with the new Hexagon 686 DSP and Qualcomm Spectra 165 ISP for better low-light photography, better portraits, and better ways to interact with your environment.
The onboard AI engine also provides better security with support for 3D Face Unlock. Qualcomm claims the new AI features are 2x faster than that of the Snapdragon 660.
The Snapdragon 665 supports Bluetooth 5.0 LPE, USB 3.1, up to 16MP dual camera and 48MP single camera, 4K at 30fps, and slow-motion recording up to 120fps at 1080p. Maximum display support is 2520 x 1080 (FHD+). It also supports Quick Charge 3.0.
Snapdragon 730 and Snapdragon 730G
The Snapdragon 730 (SM7150-AA) and Snapdragon 730G (SM7150-AB) are two new processors designed for mobile gaming. They are both 8nm octa-core chipsets (2+6 core arrangement) with Kryo 470 CPUs clocked at 2.2GHz with Adreno 618 GPUs. Qualcomm says the two processors provide a 35% increase in performance compared to the previous generation.
The Snapdragon 730 duo are the first 7 series processors to feature the Hexagon Tensor Accelerator. Both processors also feature the Hexagon 688 DSP which works with the GPU and CPU to complete AI tasks faster and in more power-efficient ways.
The two processors put photography at the forefront. There is a Computer Vision ISP (CV-ISP) that provides depth sensing capabilities at 60fps and uses 4x less power compared to the Snapdragon 710. The CV-ISP also allows you to record 4K HDR videos with portrait mode and object segmentation. It also supports image capturing at 48MP with support for multi-frame noise reduction.
The Snapdragon 730 and Snapdragon 730G feature the Snapdragon X15 LTE modem which brings up to 800Mbps download speeds. The two SoCs are also Wi-Fi 6 ready and support Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+.
Where the Snapdragon 730G shines are in its gaming features. The Adreno 618 GPU is enhanced and provides 25% more performance than the Snapdragon 710. It also uses the Vulkan 1.1 graphics library which uses 20% less power than Open GL ES. There is also support for True HDR which renders the game in over a “billion shades of colors” and with Qualcomm AptX Adaptive Audio and Aqstic Audio Technology, you also get “crystal-clear surround-sound audio”.
READ MORE: Qualcomm announces QCS400 SoC series for smart speakers and soundbars
The Snapdragon 730G also has anti-cheating optimizations to prevent hackers from cheating at the backend, hence a level playing field for everyone. There is also a Jank reduce that reduces stops and stutters by up to 90%. Wi-Fi latency is also significantly reduces so that Snapdragon 730G powered devices can play multi-player games with less glitches and blips.
