In between the Snapdragon 845 and Snapdragon 660, comes Qualcomm’s latest family of chipsets, the Snapdragon 700 series. The introduction of this smartphone hardware will mean that it will feature the amalgamation of all the things that make the Snapdragon 800 and 600 series great and merge them into a single silicon to be incorporated in future smartphones. If you care to know more about the Snapdragon 700 series, here is a detailed roundup of what Qualcomm and other leaks have mentioned so far related to its specifications and features.
Snapdragon 700 - Fabrication Process, Custom Cores, Performance and More Details
Qualcomm has not released the fabrication details of the Snapdragon 710 right now but our gut feeling is that it will be made on the same 14nm FinFET LPP process as the Snapdragon 660 (detailed specifications list given below). After all, Qualcomm intends this series to be appealing to companies that will be releasing more affordable devices in the future since it will cost them less for purchasing it.
Manufacturing SoCs on the 10nm FinFET node is a very delicate and expensive process and a company like Qualcomm that designs its own chips but needs to gets the silicon from TSMC and Samsung, cost management is going to be pivotal for future growth.
However, the fabless chip manufacturer did say that in comparison to the Snapdragon 660, the Snapdragon 700 series will be able to achieve twice the AI performance and 30 percent better power efficiency. Unfortunately, Qualcomm has not provided specific numbers or figures to justify that ‘30 percent’ difference and we do not know if it is only going to specifically belong to the Snapdragon 710 or other SoCs in the same family.
Snapdragon 660 specifications
- Processor: Four 2.20GHz Kryo 260 cores + Four 1.8GHz Kryo 260 cores
- GPU: Adreno 512 running at 850MHz
- Memory: Dual-channel LPDDR4 at 1866MHz (memory bandwidth of 29.9GB/s)
- LTE modem: Snapdragon X12 LTE (Cat. 12 with 600Mbps downlink and 150Mbps uplink)
- Wi-Fi adapter: 802.11ac Wave 2 (maximum 867Mbps throughput)
- ISP: 14-bit Spectra 160, 24MP single camera support, dual-16MP support, zero shutter lag, with hybrid autofocus, and optical zoom
- Bluetooth support: Bluetooth 5.0
- Qualcomm Quick Charge support: Quick Charge 4.0
- Fabrication process: 14nm LPP (Low Power Plus)
Taken from Android Central
The Snapdragon 660 comes close to the Snapdragon 821 in AnTuTu but beats beaten it in Geekbench. While these are just benchmarks and should not be a driver for real-world performance, these comparisons can provide a decent amount of foreshadowing that the Snapdragon 710 might be in line with the performance of a Snapdragon 835, possibly beating last year’s flagship SoC in some benchmarks while being bested in some.
If you take a look at the Snapdragon 660’s detailed hardware specifications, it is essentially a stripped down version of the Snapdragon 835. Perhaps the Snapdragon 710 might be a stripped down variant of the Snapdragon 845 and it too will sport custom Kryo cores.
However, a new leak reveals that the Snapdragon 710 will be shipped with a 2 + 6 CPU combo. Strangely enough, there are just 2 ‘Performance’ Kryo cores while the number of ‘Efficient’ cores has been increased to 6. Perhaps we can expect a higher clock speed on the performance cores while reducing the number of these cores adds to the extended battery life.
It is also important to note that not many manufacturers have opted to use the Snapdragon 660 in their devices and only a handful of models namely the Nokia 7 Plus possess this. Either, these phones makers were aware that Qualcomm would eventually be bridging the performance and efficiency gap of the Snapdragon 800 and 600 series by introducing a newer family or simply because the Snapdragon 660 was seen by them as an expensive purchase as opposed to let’s say, a Snapdragon 630.
As for the GPU, the Snapdragon 710 will feature an Adreno 615 with a frequency between 430MHz-700MHz. Quick Charge 4+ support will also be provided, where a device being charged using a certified power brick will be charged up to 50 percent of its total battery capacity in just 15 minutes (based on internal tests charging a 2750mAh fast charge battery and using the maximum power for a thermal limit of 40C for all charging implementations).
Snapdragon 710 and Its Competitors of the Future
The Snapdragon 710 might be a direct reply to MediaTek’s Helio P60 and Samsung’s Exynos 9610. Both of these rival SoCs feature AI capabilities and will be available at cheaper prices to compel phone manufacturers to use in their future offerings.
The Helio P60 is MediaTek’s answer to capturing the mid-range chipset market as it claims that this SoC can deliver up to 70 percent higher performance than the Helio P23 while exhibiting 25 percent better power savings in heavy gaming situations and up to 12 percent power savings overall. Chinese phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, and others are pleased with MediaTek’s efforts, and that certainly might have given Qualcomm a massive shake in the head to come up with a worthy competitor.
The chip maker has realized that all the revenue is not present in the high-end SoC range, so its important to have something that will present companies with fewer compromises and more benefits when marketing their phones. As most of you are aware, the Snapdragon 855 is going to be the first 7nm product to be introduced by Qualcomm but its price will certainly be a jaw-dropping experience for a lot of manufacturers thanks to the expensive manufacturing process.
Please be aware that not information is only available in fragments right now but we’ll continue to update you as timely as possible when its related to the Snapdragon 700 series. As a conclusion, do let us know what other features you expect from Qualcomm’s latest chipset family.
Let us start a healthy discussion down in the comments right away.
