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Qualcomm Announced Snapdragon 865+ 5G – What’s New?
For the second year in a row, Qualcomm has introduced the mid-year refresh of its flagship chipset — the Snapdragon 865+ 5G. Made to power the latest high-end smartphones — for the 3rd and 4th quarters of the year — the most powerful Android chipset yet boasts improved performance, new Wi-Fi modem, and Bluetooth technology. Just like the Snapdragon 855+ of last year, the difference between the vanilla 865 is minimal and negligible. Still, Qualcomm shared with Anandtech that the extended chipset model allows for higher performance without sacrificing battery life. With that in mind, let’s check what’s new with the Snapdragon 865+ 5G.
10% Boost in GPU, First SoC To Go Over 3GHz
The “prime” core of SD 865+ now comes with a clock speed of 3.1GHz, previously 2.84GHz. While we’re still looking at the same 7nm process node, Qualcomm assured that this has no impact on battery life. The same goes for the GPU performance of Adreno 650, now up to 10% better than the older model. Unfortunately, the chipset maker did not share the new clock speed of the GPU. But if we have to guess, it could be between 600MHz and 650MHz.
These small gains won’t have any significant impact regardless of the day-to-day tasks of a regular phone user. Instead, it’ll be more relevant to marketing gaming smartphones.
New Wi-Fi 6, aka Wi-Fi 6E
The Snapdragon 865+ now supports the new Wi-Fi 6E standard, thanks to FastConnect 6900. It means phones with this connectivity system will be able to operate on 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz spectrums. 6GHz allows for wider channel sizes for less interference and faster speeds. According to Wi-Fi Alliance, it’s three times better than both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
Bluetooth 5.2
Expect to see more Bluetooth 5.2 phones by the end of the year. With the latest version, we’re looking at dual-Bluetooth antennas for a better and more stable connection, as well as new low-energy audio features. Hopefully, that’ll make future TWS accessories provide longer battery life. As seen from this year’s earbuds, the average runtime is between three to four hours only.
As for the rest of the features of Snapdragon 865+ 5G, the ISP can supports up to 4K video recording, 64MP burst capture, and one 200MP sensor. The supported RAM speeds are still LPDDR4X(2133MHz) and LPDDR5(2750MHz).
Much like last year, the improvements are incremental. With that in mind, we don’t see any reason for you to aim for Qualcomm’s overclocked chipset. But, it’s nice to have the best and latest if you’re in the market for a new phone.
As of writing, the upcoming Lenovo Legion and ROG 3 are the first ones to use the Snapdragon 865+ chipset.
