The most powerful chipset in the entire Android ecosystem is here, one that arrives to dethrone the Snapdragon 865 -and his Plus variant- as the one that offered the best performance. In question, we talk about Snapdragon 888, which was supposed to be launched on the market under the name of Snapdragon 875, but it has not turned out that way. In the same way, this one comes with the best of the best to be the beast that will equip the high-end and flagships from this month and throughout the year 2021.
The sections that this processor chipset focuses on the most, in addition to performance in general, is that of photography, 5G connectivity and gaming. Its qualities are incredible, and here we highlight the new CPU cores that we detail in more detail below, among other things.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Features and Technical Specifications
For starters, this new piece or, better named, mobile platform has a node size of 5 nm, which is the new standard that we will surely see more often in future high performance and efficient chipset processors. This architecture allows a much lower energy consumption than that offered by other SoC's of higher nanometers, so autonomy is positively affected. This also affects the processor size, which is smaller, and the data transfer speed, which is higher.
A little more concerned, performance and energy efficiency is up to 25% higher, compared to other predecessor Qualcomm chipsets. This is also due to the core configuration that the CPU boasts, which is divided into three clusters and is as follows:
- A Cortex X1 core clocked at 2.84 GHz and 1 MB of L2 cache.
- Three Cortex A78 cores clocked at 2.4 GHz with 512 KB of L2 cache (for each).
- Quad Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz with 128 KB of L2 cache (for each).
To this we must also add 4 MB of shared L3 cache, apart from the 3 MB of processor's own cache that are dedicated exclusively to the system.
Snapdragon 888 architecture
On the other hand, with respect to Adreno GPU 660, which is the graphics engine of the Snapdragon 888, Qualcomm says that is up to 35% faster than predecessor SoC GPUs and consumes 20% less power, which also helps the autonomy not go through the ground. If we add to this that the semiconductor manufacturer will provide it with periodic and independent updates to the processor, we get that we are facing a GPU with a lot to offer, and for a long time.
As it happened with the Snapdragon 765G -and not with the Snapdragon 865-, the new Snapdragon 888 comes with an integrated 5G modem, so every smartphone that carries it will be compatible with 5G networks globally. The Snapdragon X60 5G is the modem of choice for such a task, and one that, of course, is compatible with 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks, as well as advanced connectivity alternatives such as Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. .
The AI engine of the Snapdragon 888 is named Hexagon 780, and it is the component in charge of helping to move smoothly all the tasks and processes related to Artificial Intelligence, renderings and more. It can process up to 26 tera operations per second, which is outrageous in terms of performance and makes a mockery of the 15 tera operations per second that the Snapdragon 865 could reach. produces is small, according to Qualcomm.
Based on photography, which is one of the points that most interests us all, we have great news worth highlighting. With this mobile platform, 8K resolution video recording is already set normally, which we had already seen implemented in some high-ranking mobiles this year. 4K video recording, on the other hand, is notably better, as it can be implemented with HDR simultaneously thanks to the ISP (image processor) Spectra 580 of the Snapdragon 888.
Here too 4K resolution video recording is enhanced at 120 frames per second, something that we have also seen before, but that now promises to be better and more stable thanks to the benefits of the mobile platform and its ISP Spectra 580. It will be very interesting to see how all these features and improvements affect practice when it comes to taking photos, which we will soon be discovering.
In the gaming section, there is compatibility with high refresh rates of up to 144 Hz, something especially important for battle royale games, although there are still none that can operate at this refresh rate, but surely more than one will receive an update to Take advantage of processor performance and offer a better gaming experience. Also some other problems like latency and touch response have been fixed; here we highlight that tactile response will improve 10% in 120fps games, 15% in 90fps games, and 20% in 60fps games.
On the other hand, the Snapdragon 888 also has its own security processor that, according to the manufacturer, will be monitoring privacy and security at all times, in order to offer extreme encryption for user safety.