Qualcomm may soon launch a new mid-range smartphone processor. The company hasn’t officially confirmed this, but the said chipset has leaked in great detail on the Chinese social network Weibo (via). According to the well-known tipster Digital Chat Station, it will be a Snapdragon 7 series chipset featuring ARM’s v8 architecture.
This octa-core processor will have four ARM Cortex-A710 CPU cores clocked at 2.36GHz and four Cortex-A510 cores at 1.80GHz. For graphics, it will feature the Adreno 662 GPU. Samsung will reportedly manufacture this chipset using its 4nm fabrication process.
This processor could sit just below the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
Based on the leaked specs, this upcoming Snapdragon 7 series chipset could be Qualcomm’s best premium mid-range offering yet. It could sit just below the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship in the company’s pecking order. If you recall, the latter features the Cortex-A710 and Cortex-A510 CPU cores. But it trades one Cortex-A710 core for the much more powerful Cortex-X2 core.
As in the Snapdragon 7 series, Qualcomm’s latest offering is the Snapdragon 778G. It is a 6nm processor, so the upcoming chipset (4nm) will have a clear advantage over it in terms of power efficiency. ARM’s newer Cortex-A710 and Cortex-A510 CPU cores should also bring improvements in overall performance from Cortex-A78 and Cortex-A55 cores. The GPU is more powerful too (Adreno 662 vs Adreno 642L).
All in all, this unannounced Qualcomm chipset should bring improvements all-around over the Snapdragon 778G. Hopefully, Samsung’s “inferior” chip tech won’t affect its performance. The Korean firm has been finding it difficult to match TSMC’s power efficiency and thermal management capabilities.
When will this Snapdragon 7 series processor launch?
It’s been almost a year since Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 778G, its last premium mid-range processor. Launched in May last year, it got a “plus” upgrade in October. So it’s about time we get a successor to it.
Unfortunately, the company hasn’t confirmed the existence of any new Snapdragon 7 series processor yet. The American chip giant is reportedly also readying the “plus” upgrade of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship processor launched late last year. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ could go official as early as May. So going by all this, it should be a safe bet to assume that the upcoming Snapdragon 7 series chipset would also arrive alongside it.
As for the name, we expect Qualcomm to call this unannounced chipset Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 based on its recently revamped branding scheme. We will let you know as and when we have more information.