[AT]Qualcomm raises the bar on low and mid range SoCs

[LukaP]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8990/qualcomm-announces-new-soc-lineup-modems

 

Qualcomm has announced 4 new SKUs to join their Snapdragon 400 and 600 lineup. The SoCs are called 415 and 425, and 618 and 620.

 

Snapdragon 400

The 400 series isnt really that interesting, we get 4 more A53 cores to join the 4 that were there before, yaay AMD much? They also upgraded the GPU to an Adreno 405 and dropped support for LPDDR2. The GPU adds support for hardware HEVC decode 1080p@30Hz.

 

 

Snapdragon 600

Now what is really interesting are the 2 new 600 SKUs. They both feature 4 A53 low power cores, but have been announced using the new A72 cores for the high power tasks. The 618 has 2 of them, while the 620 is an "octacore" with 4 high power cores. They have also added dual channel support, as well as a new "next gen" Adreno GPU. 

 

 

What this means here is that we will soon have a 600 series SoC from qualcomm that actually rivals their 800/801/805 as well as the soon to be released 810 chips.  Yaay for powerful midrange. Since the 600 parts use the newly announced A72 cores, we will probably see them ship in Q1/2 2016, and by then Qualcomm should have also finished up the 64bit ARMv8 based Krait core to use in their 800 series. 

2016 is shaping up to be very interesting for ARM, with qualcomm integrating strong cores into their midrange, LG entering the game with their own SoC, as well as Samsung moving to Exynos, and NV and Apple not being that much ahead with Denver and Cyclone. 

 

 

 

Oh i guess they also rebranded their radio/modems as well

 

 

Finally as part of today's announcement, is a re-branding of Qualcomm's modem line-up. The "Gobi" name is abandoned in favour of a "X# LTE" denomination. It's to be noted that the model numbers don't correspond to actual LTE category capability, as for example the X10 and X12 modems are capable of respectively Category 9 and 10 LTE. The aforementioned parts are re-brandings of the modem variants which we find in the standalone Gobi 9x45 and 9x40 and Snapdragon 808 and 810 SoCs.

[KamiKatze]

Their naming scheme could be improved.

[LukaP]

Their naming scheme could be improved.

Why? its fine as far as names go. 400 is low end, 600 is midrange, 800 is high end. the higher the numbers after series, the better. and the average person buying a smartphone and caring at all about the SoC needs to know only that. and those of us that want to know more will read about it anyway, dont need every spec to be in the name

[KamiKatze]

Why? its fine as far as names go. 400 is low end, 600 is midrange, 800 is high end. the higher the numbers after series, the better. and the average person buying a smartphone and caring at all about the SoC needs to know only that. and those of us that want to know more will read about it anyway, dont need every spec to be in the name

 

Idk. The Snapdragon 400 is a year old already. The 410 is brandnew. Maybe it's just me.

 

But the clock speeds alone look impressive. They're almost as high as my laptop's .

[Bogica]

Finally, Mid range seems like high end, now if only their competition would get serious that would be great!
They are like Intel of SOC, they don't have much competition. Nvidia throws in a good SOC but I haven't seen Tegra smartphones in ages, just tablets.

[Snickerzz]

Why? its fine as far as names go. 400 is low end, 600 is midrange, 800 is high end. the higher the numbers after series, the better. and the average person buying a smartphone and caring at all about the SoC needs to know only that. and those of us that want to know more will read about it anyway, dont need every spec to be in the name

lol most people wont know what a soc is. Theyll only want to know it has a qualcomm

[LukaP]

Idk. The Snapdragon 400 is a year old already. The 410 is brandnew. Maybe it's just me.

 

But the clock speeds alone look impressive. They're almost as high as my laptop's .

Well yeah, it was the first 400 part. and obviously the 415 is better, and the 425 as well, but both are worse than the 618 and 620

[LukaP]

Finally, Mid range seems like high end, now if only their competition would get serious that would be great!

They are like Intel of SOC, they don't have much competition. Nvidia throws in a good SOC but I haven't seen Tegra smartphones in ages, just tablets.

well Samsung left them for their in house Exynos parts, intel itself is making a breakthrough into tablets now, LG started making their own parts, and MediaTek basically owns the lowend for now. Qualcomm realised their monopoly is ending, and are trying to save what they can by beefing up the SoCs where it matters. The volume shipping ones, not the "niche" high end ones

 

lol most people wont know what a soc is. Theyll only want to know it has a qualcomm

naah its not even qualcomm, its snapdragon that they are marketing. so even phones with snapdragon 200 are amazing to regular joes

[Bogica]

lol most people wont know what a soc is. Theyll only want to know it has a qualcomm

Which, honestly, is not a bad policy to have. Everyone has been burned by a poor Mediatek SOC running a high res screen. Snapdragon SOC's perform amazing even on low end- Snapdragon 200& 400.

[Bogica]

well Samsung left them for their in house Exynos parts, intel itself is making a breakthrough into tablets now, LG started making their own parts, and MediaTek basically owns the lowend for now. Qualcomm realised their monopoly is ending, and are trying to save what they can by beefing up the SoCs where it matters. The volume shipping ones, not the "niche" high end ones.

I'm hoping Core M kicks major ass. Atom hasn't turned out as promised, considering it was the best Intel had to offer in that department and it performed slightly above a mid ranger. MediaTek is literally the king of low end and can be used on a 720p screen as their maximum limit. The older Exynos just killed battery life so I sincerely hope Samsung gets it right this time.

[LukaP]

I'm hoping Core M kicks major ass. Atom hasn't turned out as promised, considering it was the best Intel had to offer in that department and it performed slightly above a mid ranger. MediaTek is literally the king of low end and can be used on a 720p screen as their maximum limit. The older Exynos just killed battery life so I sincerely hope Samsung gets it right this time.

Core M is at most a 10+" tablet part, since its still a broadwell part and very powerhungry (around 4-5W). im waiting for Airmont Atoms. those should compete great against the snapdragon 800s and the new exynos parts.

 

well mediatek is only king of the noname lowend, since their chips are muuuch cheaper than S400 for example, but also perform much much worse.

 

Oh samsung will have a great part out with the Exynos 7 series. 16nm FF+ (basically a very similar process to the current 22nm trigate from intel) will offer good power and space savings compared to the current 20nm HKMG. plus the powersavings from the new A57/53 chips, should make them a very interesting player

[qwertywarrior]

aaaaaaaaaand their naming scheme took a turn for the worse

[LukaP]

aaaaaaaaaand their naming scheme took a turn for the worse

just explain. am i really the only one who finds this one of the better namings?

 

 

Why? its fine as far as names go. 400 is low end, 600 is midrange, 800 is high end. the higher the numbers after series, the better. and the average person buying a smartphone and caring at all about the SoC needs to know only that. and those of us that want to know more will read about it anyway, dont need every spec to be in the name

[qwertywarrior]

just explain. am i really the only one who finds this one of the better namings?

ok so this how it started

S4 dual krait and the S4 PRO

then they moved to the numbering scheme which was a great move

200 low end - 400 midrange - 600 mid high end  - 800 High end

 

for some stupid reason they decided to release A72 cores on the 600 range and A57 on the 800 range

its just bad timing if they did while saying they will release custom V8 on the 800 range it would be understandable

[LukaP]

ok so this how it started

S4 dual krait and the S4 PRO

then they moved to the numbering scheme which was a great move

200 low end - 400 midrange - 600 mid high end  - 800 High end

 

for some stupid reason they decided to release A72 cores on the 600 range and A57 on the 800 range

its just bad timing if they did while saying they will release custom V8 on the 800 range it would be understandable

id agree completly but you missed one thing. A72 comes out in q1 2016, and by that time, 800 series will already be on Krait ARMv8 cores, and the 810 will be antiquated

[qwertywarrior]

id agree completly but you missed one thing. A72 comes out in q1 2016, and by that time, 800 series will already be on Krait ARMv8 cores, and the 810 will be antiquated

yeah i know thats why i think they should have at least mentioned a custom V8 so everything wouldbe in order

it feels odd to me now

[LukaP]

yeah i know thats why i think they should have at least mentioned a custom V8 so everything wouldbe in order

it feels odd to me now

They have said Krait is in development, so they did actually say it just wasnt in this article

[qwertywarrior]

They have said Krait is in development, so they did actually say it just wasnt in this article

i thought it was just a rumor

i still need a number 

i feel incomplete

[LukaP]

i thought it was just a rumor

i still need a number 

i feel incomplete

Its a pretty confirmed rumour. especially with 810 being a small jump while it used to be advertised as the revolution. and Krait is what brings that revolution, not reference ARM cores

 

hahah you will learn to live with it