Tag Archives: Adreno
New Snapdragon chips bring dual cameras to more mid-tier phones
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chip is big on photography and VR
Qualcomm outs Snapdragon 800 and 600: up to 2.3GHz quad-core, 4K video, due by mid 2013
Having pushed the Snapdragon S4 into an outrageous number of devices last year, it seemed inevitable that Qualcomm would come to CES 2013 with an even more fiery Snapdragon S5. As it turns out, that prediction was slightly off the mark. We do have new chips to talk about, thank goodness, but a change in the branding means they're actually called the Snapdragon 600 and 800. Both SoCs are due to arrive in high-end phones, tablets and smart TVs in the next three to six months, and both come with aggressive specs. If you haven't got the energy to read our slightly more detailed introduction after the break, then here are two key facts to take away:
- Qualcomm hasn't quit the rat race for a life in academia and Kauaian beach huts
- The heavyweight Snapdragon 800 promises a 75 percent performance lift over the S4 Pro, which ought to make it seriously, seriously fast.
Read on for more.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) MDP benchmarks blow away the competition (update: video)
As mentioned earlier, we've just gotten our hands on Qualcomm's latest development platform to see how its first quad core chipset fares. And boy, that APQ8064 really doesn't disappoint, but it should be no surprise -- we've already seen how the top dual core S4 chipsets already beat their quad core competitors in certain aspects, so it's only natural for the quad core S4 Pro to annihilate them. As you can see in our chart after the break, the APQ8064-based MDP easily beat the Tegra 3-based One X and Nexus 7, as well as the Exynos 4412-based Galaxy S III. And partly thanks to the Adreno 320 graphics core, the MDP even scored an astonishing 132fps in our GLBenchmark test, while the quad core Galaxy S III with Mali-400 graphics came second with 99fps, with the remaining devices lingering around 60fps only.
Obviously, the question remains how big of a trade-off there is on battery life in exchange for those two extra cores and the more powerful graphics chip. That said, we have a feeling that Snapdragon's Krait architecture and asynchronously clocked cores will again prove that Tegra 3's 4-PLUS-1 design isn't the best solution for battery efficiency -- as many of you might already know. We shall see when APQ8064-based products become available later this year. For now, take a gander at our numbers and photos.
Update: Hit the break for our hands-on video with the MDP. Also, we had a chance play with the 13-megapixel autofocus camera in the worst possible lighting conditions, and it acquitted itself rather well considering the circumstances. Check out the sample gallery below.
Myriam Joire contributed to this mind-blowing hands-on.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) MDP benchmarks blow away the competition (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsQualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core dev tablet now available for $1,299 (update: spec sheet)
For those keen beans out there who want to get an early taste of Qualcomm's first quad-core chipset, news just came in that starting today BSQUARE, the usual distributor of Qualcomm dev kits, is offering the Snapdragon S4 Pro mobile development platform for a hefty $1,299 (and just for reference, the MSM8960 "Fluid" smartphone MDP is currently sold for $999). Similar to the dual-core "Liquid" slate we tinkered with last year, this new APQ8064-based MDP sports the same 10.1 WXGA display as well as 2GB LPDDR2 RAM, 32GB of storage space and Android Ice Cream Sandwich. But obviously, developers will be able to take advantage of the two extra asynchronous CPU cores plus the new Adreno 320 graphics engine, which is said to pack three to four times the processing capacity of the Adreno 225 in the current top S4 lineup. If you're in no hurry then stay tuned for our hands-on later today.
Update: We've got a spec sheet after the break, and wow, there's a 13-megapixel camera and seven mics on this slate!
Filed under: Tablet PCs
Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core dev tablet now available for $1,299 (update: spec sheet) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsQualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU family expands past phones to HDTVs, tablets and Windows 8 PCs
Sure Qualcomm has snagged quite the coup by sliding some of its dual-core S4 CPUs into the US-bound Galaxy S IIIs, but it's not stopping there. The company just revealed versions of these chips will power connected HDTVs and set-top boxes as well as PCs and Windows 8 (including Windows Phone 8) devices. There's four tiers of the upcoming processors: Prime, Pro, Plus and Play. S4 Prime is the smart TV platform that includes the MPQ8064 1.5GHz quad-core CPU with Adreno 320 graphics, while S4 Pro processors are ready to be the brains of Windows RT tablets, laptops and tablet / laptop combos. S4 Plus is the high-end smartphone experience we've come to associate with the Snapdragon brand, and finally S4 Play for more entry level mobile devices. Check after the break for more info on the chips in each family and details on what they can do, and our hands on with some S4 powered Windows 8 devices right here.
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU family expands past phones to HDTVs, tablets and Windows 8 PCs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jun 2012 02:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsQualcomm hires former AMD CTO, makes ’em pay for dropping mobile
Qualcomm is hiring AMD's former CTO Eric Demers to help the company produce a blockbuster mobile graphics chip. It needs the silicon for its big push for smartphone dominance (and tablets running Windows RT) in the face of strong competition from Imagination Technologies' Series 6 PowerVR and NVIDIA's Tegra 3. Demers' first job will be to merge Qualcomm's in-house Adreno team with ATI's Imageon mobile graphics chip team, which AMD flogged off for $65 million back in 2009 -- a move Sunnyvale is probably regretting now that it too is trying to get its hardware into mobile devices, unless it included a do-over clause in the sales contract.
Qualcomm hires former AMD CTO, makes 'em pay for dropping mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 12:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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