C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 smartphone processor.
It offers a significantly more powerful CPU and GPU compared to the previous generation, as well as a 4nm design.
This chip will likely power a variety of cheap Android phones.
Qualcomm‘s Snapdragon 6 series of processors powers a variety of cheap Android phones, from Motorola and Xiaomi to Samsung and HONOR. Now, the company has revealed the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4, which brings some notable improvements.
For starters, Qualcomm says this is the first Snapdragon 6 series chip built on a 4nm manufacturing process (Samsung). That’s a notable deal, as a smaller manufacturing process typically results in a more efficient chipset and improved performance. There’s no word on specific efficiency gains compared to the 6nm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3, though.
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The Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 uses the same old Cortex-A78 and A55 CPU cores as its predecessor, albeit with a 100MHz peak clock speed boost. Look a little closely, though, and you’ll see that the CPU layout has undergone a significant change. The new chip now sports a 4+4 layout (four big cores and four little cores) versus the previous silicon’s 2+6 layout. Taken together with the smaller manufacturing process, it’s no wonder Qualcomm says CPU performance has improved by 36%. This is good news for more demanding tasks that require multi-core power, such as video encoding and media editing. This is particularly good news for emulation, as some emulators (e.g., NetherSX2 for PS2) require multiple big CPU cores for demanding games.
The chip designer also says you can expect a 59% better GPU, as well as variable rate shading, Qualcomm Game Quick Touch to reduce touch latency, and support for a 144Hz refresh rate (up from 120Hz). This all makes for a pretty substantial upgrade if you want to game on your next budget phone.
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