Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 SoC, the company’s top-of-the-line mid-range chip. The SoC features the Qualcomm Kyro CPU with speeds up to 2.91GHz claiming a 50% performance improvement over the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1. The Adreno GPU also performs twice as well, all while getting 13% better power efficiency across the system for daily use.
According to Qualcomm, the SoC will be adopted by manufacturers including Redmi and Realmi, whose commercial devices featuring the chip are expected to launch later this month.
While specifications indicate that the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 sits just below the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the 4nm TSMC fabrication process means it has the same core layout just running at a lower clock frequency. Notable improvements in the SoC over the rest of the 7-series from Qualcomm are in gaming performance, camera, AI and connectivity.
For starters, the SoC supports select Snapdragon Elite Gaming features including Auto Variable Rate Shading and Volumetric Rendering. It also comes with the Qualcomm AI Engine built-in. Qualcomm is claiming twice as much AI performance with 40% better performance per watt compared to the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1.
The camera department however gets one of the most notable changes, now supporting an 18-bit triple ISP, meaning the chip can support camera sensors of up to 200MP photo capture and staggered HDR video capture with triple exposure from two cameras simultaneously.
Finally, connectivity also sees an upgrade thanks to the onboard Snapdragon X62 5G Modem-RF system. Qualcomm claims download speeds of up to 4.4 Gbps with better power efficiency, and support for more networks, frequencies and bandwidths globally. Also coming to the 7-series for the first time is support for 5G/4G Dual-SIM Dual Active (DSDA), meaning the chip can keep two SIM cards active simultaneously.
WiFi support is handled by the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 system meaning support for WiFi 6/6E with download speeds of up to 3.6 Gbps. You also get Bluetooth 5.3 and LE, in addition to support for Qualcomm aptX Voice, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive and LE audio.
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