This seems great but I think most OEMs go for mediatek. Qualcomm seriously needs a good competitor in high performance. M1 performance is just bonkers.
No stock ARM core even gets close to Firestorm, and looking at ARM's future roadmap there won't be for a long time unless you design your own ARM core instead.
That's what QC would have to do to compete with Apple's single-threaded performance.
Also QC are really competing with A14, not M1. QC are showing no sign of caring significantly about WoA, we'll have to hope some other ARM vendor does instead.
Looks like a decent upgrade to the low-end, especially if the GPU actually gets the promised performance boost. Nice to see that they've finally stopped dragging their feet in this part of the market.
Qualcomm has never dragged its feet in GPU performance. The "performance boost" to which you are referring has no real-world impact on what the end-user experiences in terms of graphics performance. Most of this is actually handled by the CPU. The integrated GPU is called into play only when the CPU has reached its threshold as set by the CPU governor. On any lower end device, such as those powered by the Snapdragon 480, such a minor upgrade to the GPU won't be noticed by the user. In fact, the jump to an Adreno 619 from the predecessor 610 will most likely not even make a difference on GPU benchmarks.
this soc is huge improvements in low end category, Adreno 619 is already used in sd 750 which is upper midrange. most benchmarks shows 80% to 120% increase in gpu power. also cpu wise kryo 460 (cortex A76) with 8nm manufacturing process will beat many midrange soc.
Since AV1 support didn't make it into the 888, I could see it launching with a midrange SoC later on (I'd love to say "this year" but who knows) like a 765G successor.
I'm wishfully hoping that we'll see hardware decoder support for AV1 without having to wait ANOTHER year for the next gen flagship.
Given that Snapdragon 460 devices are only available in Q4 2020, I'm actually surprised that this 480 will be available in Q1/Q2. Maybe it have slightly price premium than 460 and 470 will be launched later this year with the same price as 460.
I'm not sure what the push for 5G is, I'm happy with 4G LTE speeds. What are people doing on their phones that they require anything faster than 40 Mbps? It's not like webpages load any faster. Full disclosure, I have 1 Gbps internet at home and I'm not even bothered that my WiFi 5 is is limited to 300 Mbps or so. Latency is more important than raw bandwidth, so my desktops are all on ethernet. I'd rather see dead spots in rural areas get 3G/4G LTE than 1000 Mbps on my phone.
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akmittal - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
This seems great but I think most OEMs go for mediatek.Qualcomm seriously needs a good competitor in high performance. M1 performance is just bonkers.
uzzi38 - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
No stock ARM core even gets close to Firestorm, and looking at ARM's future roadmap there won't be for a long time unless you design your own ARM core instead.That's what QC would have to do to compete with Apple's single-threaded performance.
Also QC are really competing with A14, not M1. QC are showing no sign of caring significantly about WoA, we'll have to hope some other ARM vendor does instead.
akmittal - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Qualcomm design their custom kryo cores.Even comparing with A14 there is single core difference of 30-40%
arayoflight - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
The last custom Kryo core was in Snapdragon 820. Since then it's all been just rebranding Cortex cores as Kryo.lmcd - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
Yes and that core was a whole fiasco, as it's the only ARM64 Qualcomm design no longer supported by the Windows kernel.iphonebestgamephone - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
What device ran windows on the 820?iphonebestgamephone - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
Oh, the alcatel idol 4s. So it got updates up until the support was stopped?spaceship9876 - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
I'm pretty sure they just modify the arm cores by changing cache sizes or something not creating their own cores from scratch.nandnandnand - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Throw two X1s and 14 other cores in a SoC, and you have something that will work well for WoA. It doesn't have to be as good as Apple M1.fishingbait - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
"No stock ARM core even gets close to Firestorm"Huh? Cortex X1 doesn't get close to Firestorm? Got a link to prove this?
michael2k - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16271/qualcomm-snap...X1 on the 888 only estimated to be 13% faster than the 865+, 25% over the 865
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16192/the-iphone-12...
The 865+ scored 36 vs the Firestorm's 63, and a 13% boost means the 888 still only scores 40 vs the Firestorm's 63.
The 865 scored 34, and a 25% boost means the 888 might go as high as 42, which is still 21 SPECSpeed lower than the Firestorm.
And this is single threaded; Apple has a pair of Firestorms while the 888 has only 1 Cortex X1
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Due to Verizon, MediaTek isn't a viable option for devices in the US.Mobile-Dom - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
now that i think about it, does Samsung fab every modern/current Qualcomm chip?akmittal - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Apple probably bought almost all production capability for M1ksec - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Mostly yes. Part of the deal when Qualcomm and Samsung settle their patent dispute.And no, it is not because of M1 because the volume are comparatively small. You could blame A14 though.
fishingbait - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
They fab the latest 8xx and 7xx chips. These use the 8nm process, which neither Apple or AMD has use for at the present to TSMC is still making them.Spunjji - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Looks like a decent upgrade to the low-end, especially if the GPU actually gets the promised performance boost. Nice to see that they've finally stopped dragging their feet in this part of the market.XDA-Developer - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Qualcomm has never dragged its feet in GPU performance. The "performance boost" to which you are referring has no real-world impact on what the end-user experiences in terms of graphics performance. Most of this is actually handled by the CPU. The integrated GPU is called into play only when the CPU has reached its threshold as set by the CPU governor. On any lower end device, such as those powered by the Snapdragon 480, such a minor upgrade to the GPU won't be noticed by the user. In fact, the jump to an Adreno 619 from the predecessor 610 will most likely not even make a difference on GPU benchmarks.hemedans - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
this soc is huge improvements in low end category, Adreno 619 is already used in sd 750 which is upper midrange. most benchmarks shows 80% to 120% increase in gpu power. also cpu wise kryo 460 (cortex A76) with 8nm manufacturing process will beat many midrange soc.iphonebestgamephone - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Xda developer huh, username checks out.spaceship9876 - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
No AV1 hardware decoding still.akmittal - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Their flagships does not support av1 yet, no chance this should have supported av1.MrCommunistGen - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Since AV1 support didn't make it into the 888, I could see it launching with a midrange SoC later on (I'd love to say "this year" but who knows) like a 765G successor.I'm wishfully hoping that we'll see hardware decoder support for AV1 without having to wait ANOTHER year for the next gen flagship.
0iron - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Given that Snapdragon 460 devices are only available in Q4 2020, I'm actually surprised that this 480 will be available in Q1/Q2. Maybe it have slightly price premium than 460 and 470 will be launched later this year with the same price as 460.dotes12 - Sunday, January 10, 2021 - link
I'm not sure what the push for 5G is, I'm happy with 4G LTE speeds. What are people doing on their phones that they require anything faster than 40 Mbps? It's not like webpages load any faster. Full disclosure, I have 1 Gbps internet at home and I'm not even bothered that my WiFi 5 is is limited to 300 Mbps or so. Latency is more important than raw bandwidth, so my desktops are all on ethernet. I'd rather see dead spots in rural areas get 3G/4G LTE than 1000 Mbps on my phone.Suraj tiwary - Saturday, March 6, 2021 - link
It would have been better if you have removed Snapdragon 439 & compared with Snapdragon 690