“Absent another Snapdragon 7+ chip this year, it’s hard to see the [Snapdragon 8s Gen 3] as anything other than the 7+’s successor.” -Ryan Smith, AnandTech, March 18th, 2024
Proving the adage “ask, and you shall receive”, Qualcomm is again this week for a second Snapdragon SoC announcement for cellphones. This time, the corporate is asserting the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, the latest-generation member of their comparatively new Snapdragon 7+ lineup of SoCs. Like its predecessor, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, the Gen Three is aimed on the premium phase of smartphones, providing high-end options with extra modest efficiency and prices – however nonetheless a function set and stage of efficiency forward of “mid-tier” smartphone SoCs. And, with Monday’s launch of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, it is a phase that has been bifurcated into two traces of SKUs over at Qualcomm.
With final 12 months’s Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 (7pG2) having established the template for the Snapdragon 7+ household, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 (7pG3) has a a lot simpler time defining its position on this planet, and sliding into Qualcomm’s product stack. Despite the overarching Snapdragon 7 branding, the 7+ remains to be a distinctly extra highly effective chip than the mainline Snapdragon 7 household of chips (such because the vanilla Snapdragon 7 Gen 3), skirting the road between the 2 households. Most notably, the 7+ stays the bottom tier to get a high-performance Arm Cortex-X class CPU core as its prime CPU core, making a transparent delineation between what chip households will and gained’t provide flagship-grade single-threaded CPU efficiency.
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 7-Class SoCs | ||||
| SoC | Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 (SM7675-AB) |
Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 (SM7475-AB) |
Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 (SM7550-AB) |
|
| CPU | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 2.8GHz 4x Cortex-A720 3x Cortex-A520 |
1x Cortex-X2 @ 2.91GHz 3x Cortex-A710 4x Cortex-A510 |
1x Cortex-A715 @ 2.63GHz 3x Cortex-A715 4x Cortex-A510 |
|
| GPU | Adreno | Adreno | Adreno | |
| DSP / NPU | Hexagon | Hexagon | Hexagon | |
| Memory Controller |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 4200MHz LPDDR5X / 67.2GB/s |
2x 16-bit CH
@ 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 25.6GB/s |
2x 16-bit CH
@ 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 25.6GB/s |
|
| ISP/Camera | Triple 18-bit Spectra ISP
1x 200MP or 108MP with ZSL 4K HDR video & 64MP burst seize |
Triple 18-bit Spectra ISP
1x 200MP or 108MP with ZSL 4K HDR video & 64MP burst seize |
Triple 12-bit Spectra ISP
1x 200MP or 64MP with ZSL 4K HDR video & 64MP burst seize |
|
| Encode/ Decode |
4K60 10-bit H.265
H.265, VP9 Decoding Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 1080p240 SlowMo |
4K60 10-bit H.265
H.265, VP9 Decoding Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 1080p240 SlowMo |
4K60 10-bit H.265
H.265, VP9 Decoding Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 1080p120 SlowMo |
|
| Integrated Radio | FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 + BT 5.4 2×2 MIMO |
FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E + BT 5.3 2×2 MIMO |
FastConnect 6700 Wi-Fi 6E + BT 5.3 2×2 MIMO |
|
| Integrated Modem | X63 Integrated 3GPP Rel 17 (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
X62 Integrated
(5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
X63 Integrated 3GPP Rel 17 (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
|
| Mfc. Process | TSMC 4nm | TSMC 4nm | TSMC 4nm | |
Diving into the specs for the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, it appears suspiciously like a cut-down model of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 – one thing that is not too stunning given each the timing of the chip bulletins, and the truth that the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 was a cut-down model of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Qualcomm won’t ever verify this stage of die element, after all, however the comparatively excessive prices of manufacturing masks for…
