Today, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor of the leading category with high technologies and support for Wi-Fi 7, and we will see the new processor soon on the latest smartphones that will be launched in the coming months.
The second-generation Snapdragon 8 processor comes as a successor to the first-generation Snapdragon 8 processor that the company presented last year, and we saw its outstanding performance on flagship phones such as Xiaomi 12.
This year, officially known as the SM8550-AB, this chip was manufactured at a 4nm process and included a host of improvements.
Major improvements in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor
CPU and GPU
Qualcomm has focused on improving battery power efficiency, however the new Kryo Triple CPU delivers up to 35% higher performance with up to 40% higher efficiency compared to last year’s chip.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor also provides support for new memory technologies. For RAM, the processor works with LP-DDR5X at up to 4200MHz (compared to LP-DDR5 at 3200MHz). For storage, the new UFS 4.0 format which is higher than UFS 3.1 can be used.
As for the Adreno graphics processor unit, it provides higher performance by up to 25%, while improving energy efficiency by up to 45% compared to the previous generation.
For the first time, we see ray tracing support technology “ray accelerators” within games to the Snapdragon platform, paving the way for game developers to bring this feature to Android phones as they did on computers.
This GPU is the first to support Vulkan 1.3 (along with OpenGL ES 3.2).
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 can power displays on the device with up to QHD+ resolutions of 144Hz or 4K at 60Hz.
It also supports external monitors up to 4K at 60Hz (with 10-bit Rec.2020 color gamut, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision for playback).
And Qualcomm has finally enabled AV1 video decoding – up to 8K streams are supported at 60fps (with HDR).
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Internet connection speed
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has been upgraded to the new Snapdragon X70 modem. It supports both mmWave and 5G sub-6GHz.
The maximum data download speed is 10Gbps and the maximum data upload speed is 3.5Gbps just like the first generation.
This modem supports Dual-SIM and Dual-Active (DSDA) operation in which two 5G (or 5G + 4G) SIM cards are active at the same time.
For Wi-Fi connectivity, the new chip brings support for the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 standard (802.11be) thanks to the new FastConnect 78000 platform. It tops out at 5.8Gbps (up from 3.6Gbps on the previous chip).
Camera support improvements in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
The new processor can handle up to three 36MP (30fps) cameras simultaneously or up to 200ppi for a single camera. 108MP sensors are supported without any shutter lag.
For video, the chip can record 8K HDR footage at 30fps (and shoot 64MP photos at the same time), 4K at 120fps and do slow-motion videos as well (720p at 960fps). . It supports several HDR formats including HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision.
Finally, Qualcomm has announced in Its press release To reveal the new processor, the names of the manufacturers that will adopt the new chips in their upcoming phones, headed by Xiaomi, Oppo, Honor, Vivo, Motorola, Sony and a number of other companies, but we did not see the name Samsung in the list.