Snapdragon SoC guide - All of Qualcomm’s smartphone processors explained! - Android

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors are the most ubiquitous SoCs in the Android smartphone space. Samsung uses Snapdragon for its Galaxy S line in the US and Korea, and it also powers devices from LG, OnePlus, and essentially every OEM making flagship-grade phones that doesn’t also make its own silicon. There’s a very high chance that you’re reading this on a device using a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor right now.

Snapdragon chips aren’t just found in expensive flagship smartphones though. There’s a whole portfolio of processors built for handsets at various price points. Performance and features differ a fair bit between these models, so let’s break down how the company’s latest SoCs compare and what capabilities you should expect.

Snapdragon 800 series — Premium tier

Looking for the very best Qualcomm smartphone processor? Then you want the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865 Plus, the firm’s latest and most powerful chipsets.

The standard Snapdragon 865 sports a tri-cluster semi-custom CPU arrangement, featuring one powerful 2.84Ghz Cortex-A77 core, three less powerful but still very capable 2.4Ghz Cortex-A77 cores, and four low-powered but efficient Cortex-A55 cores. Qualcomm’s Adreno graphics hardware also tends to lead the industry in terms of sheer power and capabilities, and the 865’s Adreno 650 continues that trend.

Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 865 Plus differs from the vanilla chipset by offering a 3.1Ghz Prime CPU core, while the other seven CPU cores remain unchanged. The Plus variant also features a 10% boost to graphics rendering, presumably via a clock speed boost. The 865 Plus also sports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 as opposed to Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 on the vanilla silicon.

The 800 series is Qualcomm’s flagship tier and, up until 2018’s Snapdragon 845, used a cluster of powerful cores and a cluster of power-saving cores. But 2019’s Snapdragon 855 series marked the first time we saw the three-tier system of heavy/medium/light CPU cores. Qualcomm also used to offer heavily customized CPU cores until the Snapdragon 821 back in 2016. But these days, it uses Arm’s Cortex cores and makes a few tweaks to them instead.

However, the company has invested heavily in other bits of silicon in its chipsets, such as the GPUs, modems, and image signal processors for cameras. Speaking of camera technology, these are Qualcomm’s first chipsets to support 8K video recording, joining Samsung’s Exynos 982X series and Exynos 990.

Read: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 vs Kirin 990 vs Exynos 990 — How do they compare?

The industry shift to on-device machine learning has also seen Qualcomm adapt with its flagship SoCs. It uses the top-end Hexagon digital signal processor for these tasks, with the Snapdragon 865 duo’s Hexagon 698 DSP also featuring an upgraded “Tensor” accelerator that’s 35% more power-efficient than the Snapdragon 855’s ML-focused silicon.

In plain English, that means machine learning tasks like face detection, image recognition, natural language processing, and other activities should consume far less power. In fact, Qualcomm also said that the Snapdragon 865 series is capable of on-device voice translation.

The Snapdragon 865 series is also 5G-enabled, supporting both mmWave and sub-6Ghz standards. It’s not the first 5G flagship chipset range from the brand though, as last year’s Snapdragon 855 series also offered next-generation connectivity. Both the 855 series and the 865 duo offer external 5G modems though, unlike some rivals. This generally means more power consumption compared to a processor with an integrated 5G modem.

Qualcomm isn’t the only company making flagship processors, with rival chipsets including the Samsung Exynos 990, Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 990, and MediaTek’s Dimensity 1000. But it’s generally considered the top dog in terms of features and brand name, although other competitors generally have plenty to offer too.

Notable Snapdragon 865/Plus phones

• Samsung Galaxy S20 (US, Korea)
• Asus ROG Phone 3
• Xiaomi Mi 10 series
• LG V60
• Sony Xperia 1 II

Snapdragon 700 series — Bridging the gap

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 700 series isn’t quite as straightforward as its flagship 800 series. This is due to the sheer number of them, as well as the lower end chips crossing into the 600 series.

The Snapdragon 700 series is essentially an upper mid-range family of processors, with the Snapdragon 765 series being the most popular of the lot. This is Qualcomm’s first mid-range 5G family, supporting both mmWave and sub-6Ghz flavors of 5G. It also offers a similar triple power domain CPU design as the flagship processors, albeit in a 1+1+6 layout rather than 1+3+4 seen on the flagship SoCs.

Aside from the addition of 5G and a tweaked CPU layout, the Snapdragon 765 series also stands out from other 700-series processors due to its beefier Adreno 620 GPU. The 765 family also sports a tiny 7nm manufacturing processes, on par with flagship chipsets. A smaller manufacturing process generally means a more power-efficient design when everything else is equal.

Qualcomm has since launched the Snapdragon 768G too, essentially being an overclocked version of the Snapdragon 765G. The most powerful CPU core gets a clock speed boost from 2.4Ghz to 2.8Ghz, the Adreno 620 GPU gets a 15% speed boost, and you’re also getting Bluetooth 5.2 support. The only phone to use this chipset right now is the Redmi K30 Racing Edition though.

The Snapdragon 765 series and Snapdragon 768G still have a few things in common with the Snapdragon 730 series and Snapdragon 720G, which are next on the totem pole in terms of power and capabilities. We’ve got octa-core CPUs featuring two powerful Cortex-A76 CPUs and six Cortex-A55 cores, and powerful Spectra image signal processors for high-resolution imaging.

The Snapdragon 700 series is ideal for those wanting power and features on a budget.

These aren’t the only Snapdragon 700 series chips, as the series debuted with 2018’s Snapdragon 710 (with the Snapdragon 712 being a mild upgrade). These two chips still offer a 2+6 CPU core layout, but use older Cortex-A75 cores instead of the Cortex-A76 seen in newer 700 series SoCs. So expect the new chipsets to edge out these ones when it comes to single-core performance, but you’re still getting good performance eit