Qualcomm announces a new chipset Snapdragon 888 that will power most high end 5G phones next year. For the first time in its ultra high-end lineup, Qualcomm has integrated its 5G modem on the same chip as the brains, AI and other processor features, likely giving 5G phones a boost in battery life.
The new processor is built in a 5nm process and will be using also new Kryo 680 CPU, which will be amongst the first to use ARM Cortex-X1 core, which will make the chip perform 25 times faster than the previous one. The maximum clock speed of the cores is 2.84GHz.
Qualcomm also upgraded the GPU. New Adreno 660 GPU should be 35 percent faster on graphics rendering. The new chipset will also be more energy-efficient compared to Snapdragon 875, around 25 percent better than the Kyro 680 and 20 percent more efficient than Adreno 660. The Snapdragon 888 will also support Wi-Fi 6 as well as the new 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E standard.
Some of the new features that new processing and graphic cores are bringing are the 3rd generation Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System that enables global compatibility by offering mmWave and sub-6 wave, a 6th generation Qualcomm AI Engine, with the completely re-engineered Qualcomm Hexagon processor, for better AI, Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gaming achieving frame rates up to 144 frames per second (fps).
Qualcomm is also putting a big emphasis on its camera improvements. The new Spectra 580 ISP is the first from Qualcomm to feature a triple ISP, allowing it to do things like capture three simultaneous 4K HDR video streams or three 28-megapixel photos at once at up to 2.7 gigapixels per second (35 percent faster than last year).
The new processor is bringing improved burst capabilities and is now able to capture up to 120 photos in a single second at a 12MP resolution.
The Snapdragon 888 features Qualcomm’s sixth-generation AI Engine, which it promises will help improve everything from computational photography to gaming to voice assistant performance. The Snapdragon 888 can perform 26 trillion operations per second (TOPS), compared to 15 TOPS on the Snapdragon 865, while delivering three times better power efficiency.
Qualcomm stated that the first manufacturers to offer support for Snapdragon 888 are ASUS, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, MEIZU, Motorola, Nubia, realme, OnePlus, OPPO, Sharp, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.