The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the successor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and the successor to Qualcomm’s midrange processors, the 7 Gen 1, have finally been announced and revealed by Qualcomm, and they seem like they might be the solution to Qualcomm’s recent issues. Let’s take a look.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and 7 Gen 1 details & specs
The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is Qualcomm’s most recent flagship processor, and the 7 Gen 1 will be their high end flagship processor. The specs of the processors seem interesting, and they’re both manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm node process, which should be the solution to the living inferno that was last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and Qualcomm’s performance claims are bold, as they’re claiming 10% increase in performance over the 8 Gen 1, while keeping GPU and CPU clock speeds 30% lower.
The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 features things like the Snapdragon X65 5G Modem, which is the worlds first 10 gigabit 5G solution, or Snapdragon Sight, which is their new image processor that features their 18-bit ISP, which can capture “more than 4000x more data than 14-bit predecessors”, which is a bold claim for an image processor. And most importantly the newest Kryo architecture, for peak performance.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 – comparison
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, when it first released, received a lot of complaints from reviewers and such about overheating. This was mostly due to high processor clocks, and Qualcomm using Samsung’s node process, instead of TSMC. With the new 8+ Gen 1, Qualcomm claims that they dropped the clock speeds slightly, and the processor will use less power, while also heating up less, and performing better than the original 8 Gen 1.
So, let’s talk about the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 now.
While for the underwhelming Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, Qualcomm claims 20% faster graphics performance, despite the fact that the 7 Gen 1 couldn’t beat the Snapdragon 870 in synthetic benchmarks, as we mentioned in our previous article. Qualcomm claims that the 7 Gen 1 will bring you “epic mobile gaming”, which makes us believe they worked on the processor a bit more, considering it couldn’t beat Qualcomm’s own Snapdragon 870 previously.
Qualcomm has not featured synthetic benchmark results for either of the processors, so for now we cannot tell you about the real life performance of the processors, however Qualcomm claims that they will be powerful processors, which shouldn’t be too hard to believe.
Both the processors feature Qualcomm’s signature features like their amazing DSPs for image processing, and AI processors. Now, let’s talk about the first devices to feature them.
For the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the first devices to feature Qualcomm’s newest flagship will be Xiaomi’s Xiaomi 12 Ultra, Xiaomi MIX FOLD 2, Xiaomi 12S, Xiaomi 12S Pro and Redmi K50S Pro (Xiaomi 12T Pro) all featuring the 8+ Gen 1, which we reported on previously, and for the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, the first device to feature the midrange beast will be the OPPO Reno 8. Alongside the OPPO Reno 8, there will also be a Xiaomi phone that features the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, but it won’t be releasing anytime soon, which is the Xiaomi 12 Lite 5G NE. All of these devices (except for the 12 Lite 5G NE) will be launching soon, and if you’re chomping at the bit, waiting for the newest Qualcomm processors, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer. You can read the details for the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 here, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 here.
