A listing describing what may be one of Qualcomm’s latest testing devices meant to house yet another new mobile chipset from the San Diego-based company appeared in the database of benchmarking service Geekbench earlier this week, identifying the silicon in question as the Snapdragon 680. The unannounced chip is described as a hexa-core affair clocked at a maximum operating frequency of 2.15GHz, though that particular operating speed may only refer to one of its two clusters as the module likely features both an energy-efficient and high-performance core configuration, much like virtually every other mobile silicon Qualcomm released in recent years.
The possible prototype device scored 1,940 in Geekbench’s single-core test and 5,153 in the multi-core one, with those ratings putting it somewhere between the Snapdragon 660 from last year and the more recently introduced Snapdragon 710 in terms of computational capabilities. Assuming the listing is legitimate, its main implication is that Qualcomm remains adamant to continue supporting its “main” mid-range series even as the lines between the higher-end offerings from the firm are getting increasingly more blurred. The testing device that passed through Geekbench features 6GB of RAM and runs Android 8.1 Oreo, with the listing revealing no other notable information about the 64-bit module.
While Qualcomm is presently diversifying its lineup of mobile offerings in an effort to a wider variety of devices, particularly those in the non-flagship segment of the market, the company is also looking beyond smartphones following numerous legal battles and antitrust challenges, many of which are still ongoing. Its proposed purchase of NXP Semiconductors is meant to allow it to expand in new areas of technology, though China’s competition watchdog has yet to approve the $44 billion deal. The Snapdragon 850 is now the firm’s most powerful offering to date, and though it’s exclusively targeted at Windows PCs, it’s effectively an overclocked version of the Snapdragon 845 that’s fueling today’s most computationally capable smartphones.