Last year, Samsung released a number of variants of their Galaxy S4 smartphone, with the LTE-A version being the most desirable version thanks to a speed-boost to a Snapdragon 800 CPU and 300mbps speeds over LTE. This year’s Galaxy S5 has launched with the Snapdragon 801, basically a Snapdragon 800 with a faster clock speed. What we’re all really waiting for however, is the Snapdragon 805, which promises to deliver much better graphics and even faster CPU performance. That chip isn’t said to be available until later this year, but there are already rumors swirling that the Galaxy Note 3 might be getting upgraded to the faster chip.
During Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm partnered with Samsung to show off LTE Advanced Category 6 running on a “specially modified” Galaxy Note 3, which was outfitted with a Snapdragon 805 and Qualcomm’s latest Gobi 9×35 modem. The desperation was mostly to show off high-speed LTE, in conjunction with Korean network giants SK Telecom and KT. The test was a success and it’s said LTE Cat 6 offers speeds up to 300mbps, which is nothing to scoff at. Of course, this is a just a simple test and could be that Qualcomm just needed a high-profile smartphone to demonstrate their latest tech, and the Note 3 is certainly a good choice. The Snapdragon 805 is a considerable upgrade from the 800, despite its nomenclature. The Krait 450 CPU cores and Adreno 420 GPU work together on a 64-bit platform to deliver clocks of up to 2.7 Ghz and features such as hardware tessellation.
If a version of the Note 3 were to launch with a Snapdragon 805, it’s unlikely that it would ever leave Korea, after all LTE networks that genuinely need the added performance to hit scorching speeds are only found in South Korea. The Note 3 is hardly a slouch as it is, sporting 3GB of RAM to go with that Snapdragon 800 we doubt the Note 3 will start to show its age for even another year yet. Still, more speed is always nice, right?