Qualcomm announced its next-generation Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon 765, and Snapdragon 865 7nm Mobile Platforms recently. Last year, the company also announced 8cx 7nm Compute Platform for thin. light, and always on, always connected Windows 10 PCs – Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx. Now, Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 7c and Snapdragon 8c which joins the previously announced Snapdragon 8cx.
The Snapdragon 7c compute platform has an Octa-core Kryo 468 CPU and Adreno 618 GPU, and the compute platform delivers a 25% boost in system performance. It too comes with Qualcomm AI Engine (Qualcomm Hexagon 692 DSP) that delivers over 5 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) of performance. Regarding the connectivity, it has the Snapdragon X15 LTE modem with support for 800 Mbps LTE. But there is no option for 5G in this. This platform also promises to deliver up to “twice the battery life” compared to competing platforms and is aimed at competing with budget Windows laptops.
Highlights of Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c:
- Up to 2.4GHz Octa-Core (4x performance Kryo 468+ 4x effeciency Kryo 468) CPU
- 8nm Process Technology
- Integrated X15 LTE modem
- Cat 15/13 speeds of up to 800Mbps down: 3×20 MHz carrier aggregation, up to 256-QAM, up to 4×4 MIMO on two aggregated carriers, and up to 150 Mbps up: 2×20 MHz carrier aggregation, Up to 64-QAM
- Qualcomm Adreno 618 GPU
- 4th Generation Qualcomm AI Engine, Hexagon Vector eXtensions, Hexagon Tensor Accelerator
- Hexagon 692 DSP, Qualcomm
- 14-bit ISPs, Qualcomm Spectra 255 image signal processor, 4K HDR video capture @ 30 FPS (10-bit color depth, rec2020.), Dual 16 MP cameras @ 30 FPS Zero Shutter Lag, Single HFR 32 MP camera @ 30 FPS Zero Shutter Lag, Codec Support: H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC) VP8 and VP9
- Wi-Fi 6 (11ax) ready (8ss and TWT), Advanced DPD, WPA3, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 2×2 (2-stream) MIMO
- GNSS: concurrent support for GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo,
QZSS, NavIC and SBAS, Predicted Orbits for all GNSS constellations, Dual-Frequency (L1/L5) GNSS support - Bluetooth 5.1
- 2133MHz LPDDR4 memory, 2 x 16-bit, eMMC 5.1; UFS 3.0
The Snapdragon 8c compute platform is based on a 7nm architecture and features a Kryo 490 CPU and Adreno 675 GPU. The 2nd gen Windows ARM chip is built upon the Snapdragon 8cx enterprise compute platform and delivers up to a 30% increase in performance over the Snapdragon 850. Regarding the connectivity, it has an integrated Snapdragon X24 LTE modem and manufacturers can also pair it with a Snapdragon X55 5G modem.
Qualcomm says that the AI Engine (Qualcomm Hexagon 690 DSP) in this dedicates six TOPS to accelerate machine learning applications and corporations can now take advantage of optimized system performance and connected security software to bring an additional level of performance and security.
Highlights of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8c:
- Up to 2.45 GHz Octa-Core (4x performance Kryo 490+ 4x effeciency Kryo 490) CPU
- 7nm Process Technology
- Can be paried with X55 5G modem, 5G NR, mmWave, sub-6 GHz, 5G/4G spectrum sharing, standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) modes, FDD, TDD, mmWave: 800 MHz bandwidth, 8 carriers, 2×2 MIMO,5G sub-6 GHz: 200 MHz bandwidth, 4×4 MIMO, 5G Peak Download Speed: 7 Gbps, 5G Peak Upload Speed: 3 Gbps, 5G RF: 100 MHz envelope tracking, Adaptive antenna tuning
- Integrated Snapdragon X24 LTE modem with Cat 20/13 speeds of up to 2 Gbps down, 7×20 MHz carrier aggregation, Up to 256-QAM, Up to 4×4 MIMO on five carriers, Full-Dimension MIMO (FD-MIMO), Maximum 20 spatial streams and 316 Mbps up, Qualcomm Snapdragon Upload+, Uplink Data Compression (UDC), 3×20 MHz carrier aggregation, Up to 256-QAM, Up to 2x 106 Mbps LTE stream
- Qualcomm Adreno 675 GPU, API Support DX12
- 4th Generation Qualcomm AI Engine
- Supports all versions Windows 10 (Enterprise, Pro, Home)
- Improved crypto-security, Remote management and location awareness
for enterprise efficiency - Hexagon 690 DSP, Qualcomm All-Ways Aware technology
- Dual 14-bit ISPs, Qualcomm Spectra 390 image signal
processor, 4K HDR video capture at 30 FPS (10-bit color depth, rec2020.), Dual 16 MP cameras at 30 FPS Zero Shutter Lag, Single HFR 32 MP camera at 30 FPS, Zero Shutter Lag, Slow-mo Video Capture: 720p at 480 FPS, 4K HDR decode at120 FPS, Codec Support: H.265 (HEVC), H.264 (AVC), VP9 - 2133MHz LPDDR4x memory, 8 Channels, NVME SSD; UFS3.0
- 802.11ad, 802.11ac Wave 2, 802.11a/b/g, 802.11n, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 60 GHz, 2×2 (2-stream), MU-MIMO, Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi, Dual-band simultaneous (DBS), Integrated baseband
- Global Emergency Services Support: Assisted GPS, OTDOA (LTE-based positioning), Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, SBAS
- Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, USB 3.1
- Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ technology
We can expect laptops launching in 2020 to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c and Snapdragon 8C compute platforms.