Qualcomm has just announced its latest Snapdragon 855 Plus Mobile Platform, and this is an incremental upgrade to the Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform. According to Qualcomm, this is primarily aimed at providing an elite gaming experience as it comes with an increase in CPU and GPU performance, 5G, gaming, AI and XR.
The Snapdragon 855 Plus features Qualcomm Kryo 485 CPU built on Arm Cortex Technology now runs on a clock speed of up to 2.96GHz compared to the Snapdragon 855 which runs on a clock speed of up to 2.84GHz. The graphics duties are handled by Qualcomm Adreno 640 GPU that offers a 15% increase compared to Snapdragon 855.
While the bump in numbers is not significant compared to Snapdragon 855, Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 855 Plus will be ideal for gaming and will raise the bar for elite gamers. The Vulkan 1.1 Graphics Driver is now 20% more power efficient than Open GL ES and this Mobile Platform also features software enhancements such as Game Jank Reducer, Game Fast Loader, Game AntiCheat Extensions, and more.
The updated AI Engine now offers a total capacity of more than 7 trillion operations per second (7 TOPs). It still does not come with a built-in 5G modem and comes with an integrated multi-gigabit Snapdragon X24 LTE 4G modem. The support for 5G connectivity is provided using the X50 5G modem separately.
Qualcomm announced that devices with Snapdragon 855 Plus are expected in Q2 2019. ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) has announced that the next-generation ROG Phone II that will be announced next week will be the world’s first gaming phone to be powered by the new Snapdragon 855 Plus Mobile Platform.
Commenting on the launch, Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. said:
Snapdragon 855 Plus will raise the bar for elite gamers with the increase in CPU and GPU performance and elevate experiences for 5G, gaming, AI and XR, which is something our OEM customers look to us to deliver. Snapdragon 855 Plus is our most advanced mobile platform to date and will build upon the success of the 2019 Android flagship Snapdragon 855 5G mobile platform.