Inside the Snapdragon 865: All the specs and news

This Wednesday (04), took place the second day of the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019, Qualcomm. After officially announcing three new chipsets in the Snapdragon for 2020, the company shared more details and technologies of the model Snapdragon 865 – the most powerful that will be in high-end smartphones next year.

A Qualcomm opened the event telling a little of the work done until reaching the mighty Snapdragon 865. The company took about three years to develop the processor and thus manage to meet the demands that are demanded by businesses and consumers. 

The new Snapdragon 865 enough to be the fastest and most efficient – ​​in everything. To give you an idea, it can perform up to 15 trillion tasks per second, all thanks to the new tensor accelerator. Qualcomm Hexagon. That number is 5x higher than what was possible three years ago and twice as many tasks as Snapdragon 855 can do. 

O Snapdragon 865 had as main pillars: the experiences in artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), mobile gaming (“Mobile Game”, in free translation), in addition to high-fidelity audio, security and the 5G. Therefore, high-end smartphones launched in 2020 will already be able to rely on the chipset that supports the fifth generation of mobile internet. 

“We have several goals in creating the Snapdragon 865, among them, excellence in video recording at high resolutions”, says Christopher Patrick, vice president of Engineering at Qualcomm. He explains that the new processor's specifications were designed to support 8K video recording and photo recording with sensors up to 200 megapixels.

O Snapdragon 865 is also the first processor to support full integration dual SIM. This means that smartphones equipped with it will be able to dispense with carrier cards and still guarantee security in activating two lines. 

More powerful processing

Altogether, it is based on eight cores divided into three groups: main, performance and efficiency. The main core, called “Prime”, is a ARM Cortex-A77 running at 2.85GHz and pairing with 2kb L512 memory cache, which provides maximum performance. In addition, three other cores Cortex-A77 with 2.5GHz frequency complete the performance parts.

Launched this year, the Cortex-A77 is the most powerful CPU in the world and the Snapdragon 865 is the first chipset equipped with it, providing enough power to mobile gaming most demanding and other applications. To give you an idea, the processor Kirin 990, Huawei, which equips the new Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro, are composed of CPUs Cortex-A76.

The last four cores are ARM Cortex-A55 running at 1.8GHz and 128kb of L2 cache, with a focus on energy efficiency. According to the Qualcomm, the new version promises a performance and efficiency increase of up to 25% compared to Snapdragon 855.

In the graphic part, the Qualcomm equipped the Snapdragon 865 with a GPU Adreno 650, which should result in an increase of up to 25% compared to the Adreno 640. According to the company, smartphones equipped with the processor will run “desktop quality” games.

Snapdragon Elite Gaming

A Qualcomm also emphasizes the incentive to develop devices with the Snapdragon Elite Gaming. This is an identification that ensures that the device is optimized for games. He will be present at the Snapdragon 865 and not Snapdragon 765 and 765G.

Still in the area of ​​games, the Qualcomm talked about the game smoother, a technology that delivers an uninterrupted frame rate independent of screen updates. It is worth noting that the Snapdragon 865 has fast responses, particularly in games, significantly reducing latency to just 5ms. A connection considered good to play online is in the range of 20ms to 30ms, for example.

O Desktop Forward Rendering is another highlight in games and brings extreme realism. For the first time, the processor will be updated drivers of the graphics card. the user of Android you can go to Google Store and update the driver, as if it were on a computer.

Himself GoogleDuring Google I/O 2019, showed interest in “giving autonomy” to the user to make such updates, leaving the Android more modular and less dependent on OS updates.

New X55 5G modem

O Snapdragon 865 is “world's most advanced 5G platform”According to Qualcomm. Much of this achievement is due to the dedicated modem Snapdragon X55 5G, different from X52 5G, present in Snapdragon 765 e 765G, which is integrated. By not being integrated, the modem loses in ease to save energy in relation to the X52 5G, but it can handle a wider range of bands, including 3G, 4G and all variants of 5G.

O X55 5G achieves multi-gigabit speeds of up to 7,5Gbps, is capable of supporting all major mmWave and sub-5 6G regions and frequency bands, T e FDD to SA and NSA modes. 5G NR, LTE support also includes: WCDMA, CBRS, TD-SCDMA, HSPA and CDMA. Technologies like Qualcomm 5G PowerSave, Qualcomm Smart Transmit, Qualcomm Wideband Envelope Tracking e Qualcomm Signal Boost help to offer these 5G features in the best possible way, according to the Qualcomm.

The top of the line in the series Snapdragon 800 is also standard compliant Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, which enables faster connections to compatible routers – thus providing higher download and upload numbers, as well as less latency. Still, a greater flow of data favors another important point in the Snapdragon 865: artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence 

We have already seen that the new generation of Snapdragon works with many technologies. From the smartphone sensors working at low power and together with the processor's artificial intelligence technologies, the practical result is that functions that were previously hampered by the delay in "loading", now work in an agile and, consequently, instantaneous way. 

For example, it will be easier to do automatic music detection, real-time speech transcription and translation, and contextual classification of images captured by cameras, etc.

A Qualcomm developed a technology capable of compressing AI activity data, so that activities that previously depended on powerful cloud servers can now be performed by the device itself. In addition to increasing the speed of carrying out tasks, this feature ensures more data security, as they do not leave the device. 

with technology Qualcomm Sensing Hub, through artificial intelligence, will be able to detect the user's voice very accurately. The resource will be used with virtual assistants, such as Google Assistant, and will spend much less energy.

The future of mobile photography

During the presentation of Snapdragon 865, Qualcomm addressed the issue of photography on devices. Not for nothing, the Snapdragon 865 brings important resources and intelligence to art lovers. 

It has an image processor. Spectra 480, which works at speeds of up to 2 gigapixels per second. four times more pixels per click than its predecessor.

In practice, the Qualcomm explains that the new ISP can remove noise from images (dots that appear in the image reducing the quality of the photo). The idea is to understand and deal with these “errors”, reducing noise without destroying the details and contrast of your records. 

Thanks to the new image processor, the Snapdragon 865 will support 200 MP sensors, as well as allow recording in 8K at 30 frames per second or in 4K at 120 fps, which can be used for slow motion effects. And speaking of slow motion, one of the most significant improvements in the cameras is the possibility of recording in HD (720p) at 960 fps and with no time limit. That is, you will have a greater possibility of editing.

In numbers, the Qualcomm share: image texture will be 18% better; 16% less energy spent on video production and pixel processing for noise reduction improves by 40%. 

Still in the picture, the Snapdragon 865 will support files HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format). This type of file promises to replace the .JPEG, guaranteeing the quality of images in a smaller size. O HEIF It will also allow you to save EXIF ​​data (location information and camera data that are saved with each photographic record).

With semantic segmentation (or “Segmentation”, in Portuguese), the user will have the possibility of improving the quality of images produced using artificial intelligence. The technology will recognize the objects in the photo (such as background, skin, hair, fabric, plants) and, from there, apply the best solution to preserve the details and correct possible errors. (store.spaceylon.com)  

In Partnership with Dolby and Qualcomm

Another feature discussed during the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019 is in relation to HDR (High Dynamic Range). The fourth generation of video capture in HDR already supports the standard Dolby Vision for Video Capture. 

A Qualcomm and Dolby announced that it is now possible to create content with the standard Dolby Vision for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Therefore, recording videos in 4K at 120FPS is viable. 

Safety 

A Qualcomm took advantage of the event to, together with the Google strengthen system security Android. O Snapdragon 865 will be the first processor to allow personal documents to be sent to the device in complete security, from the Android R ( Android 11 keep the current nomenclature). 

Sonic Max 3D

The chip still supports the new system Sonic Max 3D of ultrasonic fingerprint reading through sensors located below the display glass.

The sensor area will have a reading coverage 17 times greater than the 3D Sonic, which allows you to read in more places on the screen, but also allows you to read either a whole finger or two fingers simultaneously. The advantages are several, such as the use of financial transactions.

The new generation of 3D Sonic also lets you customize how you want to access certain parts of the device. For example, you will be able to use one finger to unlock your personal profile, while the other finger will unlock the professional part.

When will it hit the market?

During the first day of Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019, Xiaomi, Oppo e Motorola announced that they will equip the novelties of the Qualcomm on their smartphones from 2020. But in addition to these three, check out other companies that also confirmed the partnership:

• Xiaomi;
• Motorola;
• oppo;
• Samsung;
• Really:
• Alive;
• HMD Global (Nokia);
• HTC;
• OnePlus;
• LG;
• nubian;
• ZTE;
• Blackshark;
• Coolpad;
• iQOO;
• meizu;
• RedMagic;
• Smartisan;
• TCL.

What do you think of all this potential? Snapdragon 865? Leave in the comments if you will buy the first smartphone with the new processor in Brazil!

Snapdragon 865 datasheet

*The journalist traveled to Hawaii at the invitation of Qualcomm.