Earlier in the year we were able to cover Qualcomm's announcement of the Snapdragon 618 and 620 mid-range SoCs. We haven't heard much about the SoCs since the original news, but today Qualcomm made the new announcement that there will be a product renaming. From now on, the Snapdragon 618 becomes the Snapdragon 650 and the Snapdragon 620 becomes the new Snapdragon 652. It seems that Qualcomm saw possibility of product lineup confusion between the existing Snapdragon 61x models and the new parts, and because the new models represent a significant boost in performance to previous generation A53-only SoCs, repositioned the parts with new higher numeric names that allows them to better differentiate themselves.

Qualcomm 2016 Mid- to High-End
SoC Snapdragon 650
(MSM8952)
Snapdragon 652
(MSM8976)
Snapdragon 820
(MSM8996)
CPU 4x Cortex A53 @1440MHz

2x Cortex A72 @1804MHz
4x Cortex A53 @1440MHz

4x Cortex A72 @1804MHz
2x Kryo @1598MHz

2x Kryo @2150MHz
Memory 2x 32-bit @ 931MHz
LPDDR3

14.9GB/s b/w
2x 32-bit @ 1803MHz
LPDDR4

28.8GB/s b/w
GPU Adreno 510
@ 550MHz
Adreno 530
@ 624MHz
Encode/
Decode
2160p30, 1080p90
H.264 & HEVC
2160p30 (p60 decode),
1080p60
H.264 & HEVC
Camera/ISP Dual ISP
21MP
Dual ISP
25MP
Integrated
Modem
"X8 LTE" Cat. 7
300Mbps DL 100Mbps UL

2x20MHz C.A. 
(DL & UL)
"X12 LTE" Cat. 12/13 
600Mbps DL 150Mbps UL

3x20MHz C.A. (DL)
2x20MHz C.A. (UL)
Mfc. Process 28nm HPm 14nm LPP

As a reminder, the Snapdragon 650 and 652 are big.LITTLE SoCs based on ARM's Cortex A72 acting as the big cores running at 1804MHz, and along with them comes ARM's Cortex A53 clocked at 1440MHz. While both SoCs have 4 little cores, the Snapdragon 652 sports 4 A72 cores while the smaller brother sports only 2.

As a GPU we find an Adreno 510 clocked in at 550MHz. We still don't have much more information on how this new part will be able to perform compared to its predecessors, but we should be expecting levels along the line of the Adreno 418 in the current Snapdragon 808.

The biggest difference between the Snapdragon 650/652 and the high end flagship, the Snapdragon 820 will be in terms of manufacturing node as we'll be seeing the former parts made on a mature 28nm HPm node while the Snapdragon 820 enjoys the more high-end 14nm LPP manufacturing process. 

At the time we expected the new parts to ship in devices by the end of the year but as we're closing in on the holiday season it looks like we'll have to wait for early 2016 until we can get our hands on the new products, so hopefully we'll be seeing announcements in the following months with availability shortly after.

Source: Qualcomm

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  • Yaldabaoth - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    [Camera/ISP listed twice.]
  • Yaldabaoth - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    Thanks!
  • ImSpartacus - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    That's it - double cameras confirmed on all new phones in 2016.

    We've got soc support so you better believe we're getting the cameras.
  • nandnandnand - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    That's why they call it a Dual ISP.

    Ba dum tish
  • phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    Interesting. 2016 is lining up to be a good year for phone SoCs. Hopefully this means a continuation of the "great phones for decent prices" mid-range we've seen this year.

    Will be interesting to see how the 650 compares to the 808.
  • frostyfiredude - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    And against the 820 too, those 4 A72s would be quite high performance.
  • Wilco1 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    Indeed, based on this comparison with Kirin 950 and SD 820 both at 2.2GHz (http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/... the SD 652 would score ~5200 in MT overall, and ~1600 ST assuming memory controller is not screwed up. That beats the 820 on MT and is very close to Exynos 7420 on either.

    This year's high-end will be next year's mid-end... And the high-end will be a close battle between Cortex-A72, Kyro and Exynos M1.
  • jjj - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    better just look at 650 and 652 results instead of guessing http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/...
    The Xiaomi is likely at 1.7GHz and the software likely not be final.
  • edwd2 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    Current benchmarks show that its CPU performs about the same as the Exynos 7420, and its GPU is a slightly better than the Adreno 330 of the 801.
  • skavi - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link

    Pretty impressive given its older manufacturing process.

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