Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Specs Announced

[DocSwag]

Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12114/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-845-soc

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Today as part of its media event, Qualcomm finally announced the much expected Snapdragon 845, successor to last year's very successful Snapdragon 835. The Snapdragon 845 is a large step in terms of SoC architectures as it's the first to employ ARM's DynamiQ CPU cluster organization. Quickly explained, DynamIQ enables the various different CPU cores within an SoC to be hosted within the same cluster and cache hierarchy, as opposed to having separate discrete clusters with no shared cache between them (with coherency instead happening over an interconnect such as ARM's CCI). This major transition is probably the largest to date that we've seen in modern mobile smartphone ARM consumer SoCs. 

Qualcomm Snapdragon Flagship SoCs 2017-2018
SoC	Snapdragon 845	Snapdragon 835
CPU	4x Kryo 385 Gold (A75 derivative) @ 2.8GHz 4x256KB L2 4x Kryo 385 Silver (A55 derivative) @ 1.80GHz 4x128KB L2 2MB L3	4x Kryo 280 Gold (A73 derivative) @ 2.45GHz 2MB L2 4x Kryo 280 Silver (A53 derivative) @ 1.90GHz 1MB L2
GPU	Adreno 630	Adreno 540 @ 670/710MHz
Memory	4x 16-bit CH @ 1866MHz LPDDR4x 29.9GB/s 3MB system cache	4x 16-bit CH @ 1866MHz LPDDR4x 29.9GB/s
ISP/Camera	Dual 14-bit Spectra 280 ISP 1x 32MP or 2x 16MP	Dual 14-bit Spectra 180 ISP 1x 32MP or 2x 16MP
Encode/ Decode	2160p60 10-bit H.265 720p480	2160p30 (2160p60 decode), 1080p120 H.264 & H.265
Integrated Modem	Snapdragon X20 LTE (Category 18/13) DL = 1200Mbps 5x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM	Snapdragon X16 LTE (Category 16/13) DL = 1000Mbps 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 150Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM
Mfc. Process	10nm LPP	10nm LPE

 

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The Snapdragon 835's Kryo 280 performance and efficiency cores make use of ARM's Built on ARM Cortex Technology license which allows Qualcomm to make requests to ARM to change some aspects of the architectures of newly released cores and implement these changes exclusively into Snapdragon SoCs. As such the S835's CPU cores were derivatives of ARM's Cortex A73 and Cortex A53 CPU IPs. The Snapdragon 845 being the first SoC to be based on a DynamIQ big.LITTLE CPU organization also undoubtedly suggests that the Kryo 385 CPUs are based on ARM's Cortex A75 and Cortex A55 IPs, as these are the only DynamIQ compatible CPU cores available to date.

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The L3 located on the DynamIQ DSU is configured at 2MB and we're likely seeing 256KB/128KB options for the performance and efficiency core private L2's. Together this would mean there's a total of 3.5MB of combined L2 and L3 cache on the CPU complex.

 

Qualcomm interestingly disclosed that we're only seeing three voltage and frequency planes implemented; likely meaning a single plane each for the performance cores as well as the efficiency cores as well as a plane for the L3 and DSU. This is surprising as DynamIQ allows finer grained frequency/voltage planes and given Qualcomm being traditionally a big proponent of asymmetric planes such as implemented in Krait I would have expected to see a more non-traditional approach, something that would have been facilitated given the fact that Qualcomm likes to include on-chip LDO regulators for powering the CPU clusters.

 

Related to the caches but not part of the CPU, there's also a new inclusion of a 3MB system cache. This is likely a SoC interconnect cache and serves all SoC blocks - likely in similar fashion the "L3" cache on Apple A-series SoCs works. This would help reduce external memory transactions and thus also reduce power to the memory controllers and DRAM.

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The Snapdragon 845 comes with a new generation of the Adreno GPU, called the Adreno 630. The switch from a 5xx family to a 6xx family GPU, as with previous introductions from Qualcomm usually marks the transition consisting of larger architectural changes. Qualcomm is as usual very tight-lipped about details of its GPU but it promises a performance increase of 30% while also increasing power-efficiency by 30%. What this translates to is basically we're looking at 30% higher frame-rates while maintaining the same power consumption of the Snapdragon 835, which is an excellent improvement.

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The Snapdragon 845 comes manufactured on a second generation 10LPP process from Samsung. This was a natural evolution to be expected as the Snapdragon 835 was manufactured on 10LPE. Samsung promises performance increase of up to 10% at the same power levels or reduced power consumption of up to 15% at the same performance. Samsung had just announced last week the start of mass production for 10LPP. I was rather surprised to see the larger frequency boost to 2.8GHz on the performance cores as the Snapdragon 835 came with rather conservative frequencies of only 2.45. The A75 promised increased performance at the same efficiency, meaning the core uses more power to reach the higher performance point compared to the A73.

The Snapdragon 845 has been announced, and while not a generational leap in performance we're still going to be looking at a pretty good performance jump over the 835. The shift to CPU cores based on the newer A75 and A55 cores should bring a good IPC jump, and the improved 10nm LPP process node (the 835 was on 10nm LPE) also has allowed Qualcomm to raise the clock speed of the CPU. This means we now see the performance cluster of the CPU having a peak clock speed of 2.8 ghz compared to the 2.45 of the 835's Kryo 280 cores (a 14% boost). Interestingly enough, the efficiency cores are now clocked lower.

 

Overall we should expect a ~30% performance jump. This is pretty decent, though still leaves Qualcomm far behind the A11 Bionic, and even the A10 fusion from last year's iPhone 7 should still be faster.

 

The GPU is getting updated to an Adreno 630, for which we should expect about a 30% boost in performance. Other parts of the SoC such as the DSP and modem have been updated, as well as improved media capabilities (the 845 can support up to 4k 60fps, like the A11 bionic).

 

Overall, the 845 looks like it'll be a solid performance boost over the current Snapdragon 835. However, it's not going to be a revolutionary product or anything, so the 835 isn't exactly becoming obsolete anytime soon.

[Eduard the weeb]

Sad that the A11 Bioinc and A10 fusion are faster like seriously it a year old chip step up your game qualcomm

[rawrdaysgoby]

It is ok I guess? Apple's chips still faster

[TheGlenlivet]

Apple won't use their chips for windows machines.  Qcomm will have these in SFF machines everywhere soon.

[rawrdaysgoby]

7 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Apple won't use their chips for windows machines.  Qcomm will have these in SFF machines everywhere soon.

I mean yea but they sell a ton of ipads with A10x which is basically what Qcomm chips will be good for too browsing machines  it will only start digging into intel's sales I guess

[TheGlenlivet]

15 minutes ago, rawrdaysgoby said:

I mean yea but they sell a ton of ipads with A10x which is basically what Qcomm chips will be good for too browsing machines  it will only start digging into intel's sales I guess

No, I believe these are the chips that will run x86 apps on full windows machines through an emulator.  These will basically be a competitor to intel's Atom processors and other lightweight CPUs.

[TrigrH]

 

I'm loving the scale on this graph lmao.

 

22% faster and a 3 times longer bar.

[Trixanity]

2 hours ago, Eduard the weeb said:

Sad that the A11 Bioinc and A10 fusion are faster like seriously it a year old chip step up your game qualcomm

 

39 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Just look at the cache differences: 835 with 1~2MB L2, 845 with 2MB L2, A11 with 8MB L2.

I'll just leave this here

[Eduard the weeb]

42 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Just look at the cache differences: 835 with 1~2MB L2, 845 with 2MB L2, A11 with 8MB L2.

No I mean that they had a year to beat the fusion and they still cannot which is really depressing.

[Brehohn]

Is Qualcomm seriously this desperate for attention? Their mobile chips are amazing, but seriously? That graph was made by a 3 year old.

 

“The performance of the last chip had the same points across the board. But NOW, we see a variation of 1.3x or better!” -Qualcomm

 

The A11 is better and with fewer cores. Come on.

[DocSwag]

1 hour ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

They could do that, but that's not a good option, as they increasing it's performance would make the chipset more expensive, then less people would buy it, and in the end they would make less profit, and don't forget that Qualcomm have multiple processor families to work on, while Apple focuses on a single processor per gen.

Yeah. Nearly every manufacturer making a flagship phone is going to use the flagship snapdragon anyways (except for a few, such as Samsung in non us phones and huawei, but they do that pretty much no matter what), and honestly the average end user isn't aware of SoC performance, so if Qualcomm made a bigger CPU that could compete with Apple they would have to increase the price they sell it to smartphone makers which won't necessarily actually help them.

 

It's unfortunate really that only Apple is willing to make big CPU cores for mobile devices but that's probably how it'll remain for a while.

[2FA]

32 minutes ago, Brehohn said:

Is Qualcomm seriously this desperate for attention? Their mobile chips are amazing, but seriously? That graph was made by a 3 year old.

 

“The performance of the last chip had the same points across the board. But NOW, we see a variation of 1.3x or better!” -Qualcomm

 

The A11 is better and with fewer cores. Come on.

You don't like negative exponential scales? I jest

[Matu20]

Getting more out of the same node, good, what else is there to say.

[LAwLz]

Seems like a pretty substantial upgrade.

• 25% higher big CPU performance.
• 15% higher LITTLE CPU performance.
• 30% higher GPU performance at the same power consumption.
• 3 times higher DSP performance.
• New modem.
• HDR10 video recording.
• 4K 60 FPS recording.
• Higher efficiency from the 10LPP process.

[Guest]

I take it that this will be the first arm SOC with a DynamIQ big.Little config? (If not, would like to know) Can't wait to see how it actually behaves in real world scenarios (Some info).

[Trixanity]

2 hours ago, tjcater said:

I take it that this will be the first arm SOC with a DynamIQ big.Little config? (If not, would like to know) Can't wait to see how it actually behaves in real world scenarios (Some info).

Yes, indeed it is.

You'll see it in the cache structure among other things. Before you'd have the CPU cores in clusters connected through an interconnect (like ARM's CCI although it should be noted Qualcomm makes and uses their own) and that also meant you'd only have two levels of cache which I'm guessing was local to the core and local to the cluster.

 

The move to DynamIQ eliminates clusters and the interconnect. Instead they'll have coherency through a shared L3 cache. This being the first time (I think) we're seeing L3 cache from Qualcomm. 

 

It sounds a bit like Ryzen to my untrained ear except it's not of course. No NUMA and no interconnects - just the shared L3 among groups of cores. The goal is the same: more flexibility. Their end-game is different though: one is more cores and the other is asymmetric cores.

[RotoCoreOne]

That is one misleading performance graph...

[Doobeedoo]

Very good performance bump. HDR 4K60fps recording though. Can't wait to see phones with it. I wonder how good new Exynos 9810 will be now. 

Also DynamIQ big.LITTLE design is interesting, this being 4b+4L one. 

[Trixanity]

3 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Very good performance bump. HDR 4K60fps recording though. Can't wait to see phones with it. I wonder how good new Exynos 9810 will be now. 

Also DynamIQ big.LITTLE design is interesting, this being 4b+4L one. 

It also supports 1080p@240fps and 720p@480fps (presumably with HDR).

 

Another interesting tid bit is that the SoC now supports two hotwords. It'll be interesting whether it's something Google will support. 

 

I hope Samsung has become more ambitious with Exynos other than just following in the footsteps of ARM/Qualcomm. Probably not though.

[Doobeedoo]

3 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

It also supports 1080p@240fps and 720p@480fps (presumably with HDR).

 

Another interesting tid bit is that the SoC now supports two hotwords. It'll be interesting whether it's something Google will support. 

 

I hope Samsung has become more ambitious with Exynos other than just following in the footsteps of ARM/Qualcomm. Probably not though.

Need that 1000fps slow mo record feature like Sony haves. 

[suicidalfranco]

but... can it run crysis?

[Trixanity]

23 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Need that 1000fps slow mo record feature like Sony haves. 

That would require memory attached to the image sensor. It doesn't really relate to the SoC.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

but... can it run crysis?

If Crysis were ported to ARM, it should be faster than an 8800 GTS.

[TidaLWaveZ]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

but... can it run crysis?

You can remote desktop it from phone, did it awhile back and it's hilarious.

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

1 hour ago, Trixanity said:

That would require memory attached to the image sensor. It doesn't really relate to the SoC.

Yeah I know. I actually meant it as would be great that other phones adopt it too. It's pretty neat.