On Tuesday, Qualcomm announced its flagship Snapdragon 865 mobile platform that is compatible with the trending 5G. However, the details were not made clear which is our main priority of composing this post to show you things you don’t know about the newly launched Qualcomm Snapdragon 865.
Performance
The details I am about to share consist of the type of CPU and GPU and performance in general. The Snapdragon 865 SoC was built using the 7nm fabrication process from TSMC, featuring a Kryo 585 CPU and Adreno 650 GPU. The CPU consists of four ARM Cortex-A77 cores, of which the three cores run at up to 2.4GHz, white the Prime core runs up to 2.84GHz.

These make up the SoC’s ‘performance’ cores. The other four ‘efficiency’ cores are made up of ARM Cortex-A55 CPUs and have a maximum clock speed of 1.8GHz. The new Kryo 585 CPU offers up to 25 percent better performance and power efficiency. The same goes for the Adreno 650 GPU, which is tout to deliver up to 25 percent better performance.
Connectivity
This SoC uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 modem with global 5G modem support for all key regions and bands including mmWave and sub-6GHz in both TDD and FDD frequencies.
Snapdragon 865 SoC is compatible with both NSA (Non-Standalone) and SA (Standalone) modes, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). The latter technology allows operators to scale their existing 4G networks, to 5G by sharing the current 4G bands.
It also features Qualcomm’s Fast Connect 6800 mobile connectivity subsystem, which includes support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1; Super Wide Band voice over Bluetooth and TrueWireless Stereo Plus which can connect to each wireless earbud independently for a more stable connection.
Camera
It sport new Spectra 480 ISP that is said to be capable of simultaneous 4K HDR video capture, along with the ability to save full 64-megapixel stills.
According to Judd Heape, Senior Director Product Management; “It’s the biggest update we’ve ever done to cameras,”
Some of the improvements include the ability to use the entire sensor as focus pixels for quicker focus; support for Quad CFA sensors apart from Bayer sensors; recording video in Dolby Vision HDR and 4K video recording at 120fps. The Snapdragon 865 is also capable of native 960fps slow-motion video recording, without any limits.
Ai
This processor uses Qualcomm’s 5th generation AI engine, which is powered by Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, with four times TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) performance over its predecessor, while still having 35 percent better efficiency.
The new Sensing Hub also use a lesser battery, for always-on tasks such as waking up your virtual assistant with a voice command. There’s also support for LPDDR5 memory but OEMs can choose to use LPDDR4 too.
Gaming
On the Gaming aspects, they’re a lot of improvements. Keeping aside the faster GPU, the Snapdragon 865 SoC supports up to 144Hz refresh rate displays and 10-bit HDR.
What do you think about this new Qualcomm Snapdragon 865? Moreover, shout-out to Gadgets360 for a well-constructed explanation.