Qualcomm has officially released details regarding its Snapdragon 821 SoC that will take the reins from its 14nm FinFET Snapdragon 820 and is expected to power future Android handsets that are going to be released during the second half of 2016. Here are all the differences that you wanted to know between Snapdragon 821 and Snapdragon 820.
Snapdragon 821 Features The Codename MSM8996 Pro And Sports A Higher Processor Clock Speed And Higher GPU Frequency
Qualcomm has stated the following regarding its latest SoC:
“Building on the technology leadership introduced with the Snapdragon 820 platform, the 821 is engineered to deliver faster speed, improved power savings, and greater application performance, ensuring 821 powered devices keep pace with the growing performance demands of users to deliver the unmatched user experiences the Snapdragon 800 tier is known for.
The Snapdragon 821 is engineered to deliver a 10% performance increase over the 820 with the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core CPU, reaching speeds up to 2.4GHz. Why would you introduce something to replace what many consider the best mobile processor available today? Simple, we’re not. Rather than replace the Snapdragon 820, the 821 is designed to complement and extend the competitive strengths of our Snapdragon 800 lineup.”
A 10 percent performance increase may not be a whole lot, which is why we understand manufacturers’ decision to maintain their trend of incorporating a Snapdragon 820 inside future mobile devices. In fact, most of the flagship Android smartphones are running the Kryo processor at a lower clocked speed than their default frequencies, most likely to conserve battery life, which is one of the things that has incessantly plagued smartphones.
Since battery technology has not evolved ever since the transition from nickel-based batteries to lithium ion cells, so for the time being, we’ll have to rely on Qualcomm to produce energy efficient SoCs for the foreseeable future. All the differences between Snapdragon 821 and Snapdragon 820 have been listed below:
Snapdragon 820
- CPU performance cluster: 2 x Kryo running at 2.2GHz
- CPU power efficiency cluster: 2 x Kryo running at 1.6GHz
- GPU: Adreno 530 running at 624MHz
Snapdragon 821
- CPU performance cluster: 2 x Kryo running at 2.4GHz
- CPU power efficiency cluster: 2 x Kryo running at 2.0GHz
- GPU: Adreno 530 running at 650+MHz
Do you feel that manufacturers should stick to Snapdragon 820 or is it high time that they made a switch to a powerful variant? Let us know your thoughts.
