Paul Briden 07/12/2017 - 12:51pm

Qualcomm has revealed the Snapdragon 845 flagship processor and all its whizzy new features

Qualcomm just took the wraps off the next-gen Snapdragon 845 processor at its Technology Summit in Hawaii and has detailed some of the specs and features we can expect to see when it starts arriving inside flagship devices next year.

The 2018 flagship chipset will follow current trends in having quite a focus on AI capabilities.

The Snapdragon 845 SoC will use an octa-core CPU with a max clock-speed of 2.8GHz. The eight cores use Qualcomm's custom-made Kryo 385 architecture which Qualcomm promises will offer a 25% performance boost thanks to their new design. Four cores will be performance cores using ARM's Cortex-A75 architecture base, the other four are efficiency cores using ARM Cortex-A55 with a max clock-speed of 1.8GHz.

A new Adreno 630 GPU comes along for the ride with a 30% performance boost in graphics speed and the same again in power efficiency. Qualcomm also promises 2.5x quicker display throughput which will support 4K displays running at up to 120Hz.

The GPU also supports AR and VR functionality with built-in eye-tracking, hand-tracking, and multiview rendering.

There's also a new AI platform based on the Hexagon  685 DSP. This is 3x faster than the older Hexagon 682 (from the Snapdraong 835), with built-in support for Android Oreo 8.1's Neural Networks API. It'll offer faster performance for AI functions while draining less power, which will aid a number of always-on features such as voice command detection.

Qualcomm is gearing up to begin shipping the Snapdragon 845 chip to device makers in early 2018.

Snapdragon 845
Process 10 nm FinFET
CPU 8x Kryo 385 (4x Cortex-A75 up to 2.8 GHz + 4x Cortex-A55 up to 1.8 GHz)
GPU / VPS Adreno 630
Camera Up to 32MP / 16MP +16MP
Video Recording 4K HDR
Max screen resolution 2x 2400x2400 @ 120 FPS (VR)
LTE 1.2 Gbps / 150 Mbps
Wi-Fi 802.11ad Multi-gigabit
AI Platform Hexagon 685
QuickCharge QuickCharge 4/4+