What’s new in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2?
Qualcomm revealed its next flagship SoC Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 on 15th November 2022 at the Snapdragon summit in Hawaii. With this launch, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 becomes the fastest processor for android devices. According to Qualcomm, This generation is their True AI Marvel. Qualcomm has built this generation of Snapdragon focussing on Artificial Intelligence to give their users an AI-accelerated experience. We have covered all the key highlights and changes that they’ve made in their respective components.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2: Key Highlights
Hexagon Processor
Hexagon Processor is Qualcomm’s major upgrade this year. In the new upgraded architecture, they’ve doubled the size of the Tensor accelerator, and enhancements to improve performance and power consumption. This also resulted in enhanced natural language processing to 4X and power consumption by up to 60 percent. They have improved their sensing hub as well by adding a second AI processor. This will contribute to their always-sensing capabilities. In this flagship SoC, they have added a layer of processor security to secure the data collected through the always-sensing feature.
Cameras
In the camera segment, Qualcomm added a hexagon direct link a physical bridge between the hexagon and the Qualcomm Spectra ISP. They called this direct pairing the Cognitive ISP. With this addition, they will be leveraging the power of the Qualcomm Hexagon processor for image processing. They have also improved the high-resolution video playback by adding support for 8K HDR 60fps video.
Connectivity
5G AI Processor: According to Qualcomm survey, their x70 modem RF system is the only and World’s first 5G AI Processor in a mobile platform. With this AI integration, they have managed to improve the 5G performance significantly. This helps them in optimizing parameters like Channel state feedback, antenna tuning, and other functions.
Wi-Fi 7: Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 is an advanced 14nm Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Connectivity system. With their High Band Simultaneous (HBS) multi-link solution they have unlocked the Wi-Fi 7 performance. Up to 5.8 gigabits per second which are more than double Wi-Fi 6 speed with a latency of less than 2 ms.
Bluetooth: Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 also advances Bluetooth connectivity. They have doubled the range of Bluetooth connections and a 50 percent reduction in power consumption.
Adreno GPU
Qualcomm improves the graphic rendering performance by 25 percent and 45 percent increase in power efficiency. They have also added Vulcan 1.3 support with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Andreno GPU display supports all key HDR formats including HDR Vivid, HDR 10, HDR 10+, and Dolby Vision.
Kryo CPU
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has a slightly different architecture than its predecessor. Earlier Qualcomm CPUs used to have a prime core, three performance cores, and four efficiency cores. In Gen 2, they have converted one of those efficiency cores to a performance core which makes it a total of four performance cores. According to the company, this will increase the multi-threaded performance. These four performance cores are made of two distinct micro-architectures which will provide high performance to all types of apps including legacy 32-bit apps.
The prime core is now cloaked to a max CPU frequency of 3.2 gigahertz. With these changes, the Kryo CPU will perform 35 percent faster and will work with 40 percent better power efficiency.
Snapdragon Sound
With the Gen 2, Qualcomm introduced Spatial Audio – a long-awaited feature. It supports spatial audio with head tracking for surround-sound experience while gaming and multimedia consumption.
Qualcomm also added aptX Lossless support which is designed to deliver CD quality 16-bit 44.1kHz lossless audio quality over Bluetooth. With aptX Voice, call quality is also improved as it now supports 32kHz super wideband.
For more detail, you can visit Qualcomm’s official website. Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Mobile AI
Machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make.
Nick Bostrom
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