Today Qualcomm is making a giant step in direction of enabling wide-spread adoption of 5G by the bulletins of the brand new Snapdragon 480 low-end 5G SoC. The firm had already alluded a number of months in the past that it might be releasing a Snapdragon 400-series design with 5G compatibility, bringing the brand new connectivity customary to the lowest-cost units of the market, concentrating on the very excessive quantity $250 worth vary.
The new Snapdragon 480 is an especially spectacular SoC not merely due to its 5G function listing, but additionally as a result of it’s a significant efficiency improve in lots of elements, together with the usage of two Cortex-A76 cores as its predominant efficiency CPUs – a really giant bounce within the 400 collection household, seemingly representing a significant leap in efficiency for tens of millions of low-cost units available in the market.
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 400-Range SoCs | |||||||
| SoC | Snapdragon 439 | Snapdragon 450 | Snapdragon 460 |
Snapdragon 480
|
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| CPU | 4x CA53 @ 2.2GHz 4x CA53 |
8x CA53 @ 2.3GHz |
4x Kryo 240 (CA73) @ 1.8GHz 4x Kryo 240 (CA53) @ 1.8GHz |
2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.0GHz 6x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz |
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| GPU | Adreno 505 | Adreno 506 | Adreno 610 | Adreno 619 | |||
| DSP | Hexagon 536 | Hexagon 546 | Hexagon 683 | Hexagon 686 | |||
| ISP/ Camera |
Spectra
21MP single |
Spectra
21MP single |
Spectra 340
36MP single |
Spectra 345
64MP single |
|||
| Encode/ Decode |
1080p30 H.264 |
1080p60 H.264 & H.265 |
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| Memory | 1x 32-bit @ 933MHz LPDDR3 7.4GB/s |
2x 16-bit @ 1866MHz LPDDR4X 14.9GB/s |
2x 16-bit @ 2133MHz LPDDR4X 17.0GB/s |
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| Integrated Modem | Snapdragon X6 LTE (Category 4/5) DL = 150Mbps UL = 75Mbps |
Snapdragon X9 LTE (Category 7/13) DL = 300Mbps UL = 150Mbps |
Snapdragon X11 LTE (Cat 12/13) DL = 390Mbps UL = 150Mbps |
Snapdragon X51
LTE 5G NR DL = 2500Mbps |
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| Mfc. Process | 12nm LPP | 14nm LPP | 11nm LPP | 8nm LPP | |||
Starting off with the CPU configuration, the brand new Snapdragon 480 is fairly thrilling for a SoC within the low-end, because it ditches the older Cortex-A73 cores of the earlier era Snapdragon 460 for a pair of newer Cortex-A76 cores, operating at 2.0GHz. This isn’t the most recent CPU IP in the marketplace, nonetheless the bounce from an A73 to an A76 is extraordinarily giant by way of single-threaded efficiency, and is ready to deliver important person expertise advantages for brand new units utilizing the Snapdragon 480. The new SoC is a 2+6 CPU design, in contrast to the 4+Four setup of its predecessor – multi-threaded efficiency may not see as giant a bump, however for this class of SoC I don’t see that as being a difficulty. The CPU configuration truly appears to be like virtually an identical to what we’ve seen on the Snapdragon 675 – these elements could be good indicators of what to anticipate from the brand new 480 design.
On the GPU aspect of issues, we’re seeing an improve from an Adreno 610 to an Adreno 619 – Qualcomm right here guarantees a 100% improve in efficiency over its predecessor within the Snapdragon 460.
On the reminiscence aspect of issues, that is nonetheless a low-cost 2x16b LPDDR4X SoC, nonetheless we’ve seen a slight enhance in frequencies to 2133MHz.
AI efficiency is claimed to be elevated by 70%, partly as a result of improve to a brand new Hexagon 686 DSP block with vector and tensor extensions. Interestingly on the digital camera aspect of issues, Qualcomm quotes that they’ve truly carried out a triple-ISP system, a function that was solely not too long ago introduced…
