Qualcomm announces next-gen flagship Snapdragon 888 SoC with updates to GPU, AI engine, and 5G modem

Qualcomm recently debuted its next-gen flagship 800 series chip, which will power most Android flagships of 2021. The chip arrives with a new name, new architecture, and new modem. The company took the lid off the Snapdragon 888 at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2020.

Yes, the Snapdragon 888 arrives as the successor to the Snapdragon 865. But beyond the deviation in branding, the new chip brings big improvements across the board. Several OEMs have already got a look at the chip behind closed doors, and it is safe to assume that the Snapdragon 888 is coming to phones from Asus, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, Meizu, Motorola, Nubia, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo, Sharp, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.

Apart from the branding, the new Snapdragon 800 series chip now supports updatable GPU drivers, while the new Adreno GPU targets gaming at 144fps. According to Qualcomm, this is the “most significant upgrade in Qualcomm Adreno GPU performance.”

The new Snapdragon 888 SoC also features a third-generation Snapdragon X60 5G modem. The new modem offers sub-6 and mmWave 5G support, global multi-SIM, carrier aggregation, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing. The new chipset supports Wi-Fi 6E (ax working in the 6GHz band) as well as Bluetooth 5.2.

The Snapdragon 888 chipset boats the next-gen Spectra ISP, which is now 35 percent faster than the Snapdragon 865 SoC. This means it is capable of capturing photos and videos at up to 2.7 gigapixels per second, which roughly translates to 120 photos at 12-megapixel resolution. The new Hexagon processor now delivers 26 TOPS, 11 more than the 15 TOPS on the Snapdragon 865 chip.