The previous Snapdragon 810 is an octa-core chipset

Sep 18, 2015 11:42 GMT  ·  By

We’ve been talking about Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 820 platform extensively for the past few months, as the chip maker is widely expected to launch the platform soon enough.

With the new SoC, Qualcomm will try to make the world forget about one of its biggest fiascos to date, the Snapdragon 810. Ever since its inception, the silicone piece was plagued by persistent overheating issues Qualcomm just couldn’t keep in check.

But the Snapdragon 820 will be intrinsically different from the Snapdragon 810 in the sense that it will rely on Qualcomm’s own custom cores dubbed Kyro, which is a first. Moreover, unlike the Snapdragon 810, which is an octa-core affair, the Snapdragon 820 is “just” a quad-core platform.

Why the reduction, you might be wondering. Does it mean that the Snapdragon 820 won’t be as powerful as the Snapdragon 810? During an interview (as seen at Gizmo China), a Qualcomm executive sheds some light on the matter.

The Snapdragon 820 will be better than the Snapdragon 810

According to the company’s official, the use of custom Kyro cores has allowed them to optimize the chip for better performance and efficiency. So bottom line is that the silicon will be able to handle every task without needing additional cores.

Qualcomm is also focusing on delivering single-core and single-threaded performance along with multi-threaded efficiency and optimization with GPU, DSP display, video, multimedia, baseband signal and other modules.

Basically, the company chose to utilize fewer high-performance cores instead or more low-end cores and the result is an improved overall performance.

The Snapdragon 820 is expected to be quite a silicone piece, coming with a new X12 LTE modem, quad-core 64-bit CPU with 2.2GHz clock speed, and next-gen Adreno GPU with Adreno Display Processor and Adreno Video processor. Qualcomm will also incorporate Quick Charge 3.0, a new technology that allows smartphones to charge from 0 to 80% in around 35 minutes.

The first handsets bundling the Snapdragon 820 processor on board are expected to make a debut into the wild starting Q1 2016, and according to recent reports, the Samsung Galaxy S7 could be among the first to do so.