ualcomm’s mid-range 6 and 7 series are getting new additions to their respective line-ups. At the 2019 Qualcomm AI Day, the company announced the new Snapdragon 665 and Snapdragon 730 mobile platforms. The Snapdragon 665 can be seen as the successor to the incredibly popular Snapdragon 660, while the Snapdragon 730 is the successor to the Snapdragon 710. Qualcomm claims the new chips offer major improvements in AI computing, imaging, and performance, especially with respect to gaming. In fact, gaming is one area where Qualcomm is heavily promoting their new chips; the company announced that the Snapdragon 730 will be joined by the Snapdragon 730G—a Snapdragon 730 with an overclocked GPU and several gaming-centric features.
Qualcomm is continuing their trend of bringing features from their premium-tier 8 series down to their mid-range chipsets. For instance, the Snapdragon 730 includes many of the AI enhancements introduced with the Snapdragon 855, while the slightly higher-tier Snapdragon 730G introduces several of the new Snapdragon Elite Gaming features that we first saw on the Snapdragon 855. Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 665 offers up to twice the performance in on-device AI processing compared to the Snapdragon 660, and improved power savings thanks to being manufactured on an 11nm FinFET process technology compared to the 14nm Snapdragon 660. Both Snapdragon 730 chips are manufactured on using an 8nm FinFET process technology, making them the first 8nm chips from Qualcomm.
The first smartphones with the Snapdragon 665, Snapdragon 730, and Snapdragon 730G are expected to launch in mid-2019, which is fairly soon. Here’s an overview of each new mobile platform so you’ll know what to expect when the first devices with the new chips are announced.
Disclaimer: Qualcomm paid for us to attend AI Day in San Francisco.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 Specifications and Features
In a head-to-head comparison with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660, the new Snapdragon 665 doesn’t seem to offer substantial improvements. It’s also weaker than the Snapdragon 670 in CPU and GPU performance, which is what you would expect given Qualcomm’s branding convention. It’s hard to see where the Snapdragon 665 fits in given the many mid-range chipsets that Qualcomm already offers, but the Snapdragon 660, despite its immense popularity among budget Chinese smartphone manufacturers, is an aging chip. The Snapdragon 665 could be the next big hit for low-cost, mid-range Android smartphones, overtaking the Snapdragon 660. The following table summarizes the key differences between the Snapdragon 660 and Snapdragon 665.
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 (sdm660) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 (sm6125) | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 4 x performance and 4 x efficiency Kryo 260 CPU cores (Up to 2.2GHz) | 4 x performance and 4 x efficiency Kryo 260 CPU cores (Up to 2.0GHz) |
| GPU | Adreno 512
Vulkan 1.0 support
| Adreno 610 Vulkan 1.1 support |
| DSP | Hexagon 680 | Hexagon 686 |
| Memory | Type: LPDDR4/4X
Speed: Up to 1866MHz, 8GB RAM
| Type: LPDDR3/LPDDR4x Speed: Up to 1866MHz, 8GB RAM |
| ISP | Dual 14-bit Spectra 160 ISP
Single camera: Up to 25 MP, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps; Up to 48MP
Dual camera: Up to 16 MP, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps
4k @ 30fps video
| Dual 14-bit Spectra 165 ISP
Single camera: Up to 25 MP, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps; Up to 48MP
Dual camera: Up to 16 MP, MFNR, ZSL, 30fps
4K @ 30fps video
|
| Modem | Snapdragon X12
600Mbps DL (Cat. 12), 150Mbps UL (Cat. 13)
| Snapdragon X12 600Mbps DL (Cat. 12), 150Mbps UL (Cat. 13) |
| Manufacturing Process | 14nm FinFET | 11nm FinFET |
The biggest improvement over the previous generation is in AI performance. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 665 offers “up to 2x faster AI on-device processing” over the Snapdragon 660 thanks to the 3rd generation Qualcomm AI Engine, improved Adreno 610 GPU, and two Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX.) Although the Snapdragon 665’s Spectra 165 doesn’t seem to offer many improvements over the Spectra 160 ISP in the Snapdragon 660, the improved AI on-device processing performance allows for faster scene and object recognition and improvements to other Computer Vision use cases like facial recognition.
Qualcomm boasts that the Snapdragon 665 can support triple rear camera setups including a telephoto, wide-angle, and super-wide angle lens, and that the ISP is capable of handling 48MP snapshots (in other words, not with ZSL). To be clear, these features are already possible with the Snapdragon 660, as seen by the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 in China and the Nokia X71. Qualcomm has partnered with Morpho, a company specializing in image processing, to bring support for their MovieSolid video stabilization software. It’s up to each device maker whether they want to license this technology, though, so this technology isn’t an inherent feature of the Snapdragon 665.
CPU and GPU performance haven’t improved much over the previous generation, though Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 665 offers 20% reduction in power use when gaming. Although, Qualcomm attributes this improvement to the Snapdragon 665 supporting version 1.1 of the Vulkan Graphics API, which obviously requires support from game developers. Overall, though, the transition from a 14nm to 11nm manufacturing process technology should yield slight improvements in power efficiency.
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