Qualcomm has announced two new Snapdragon 600-series processors that would be powering our upcoming mid-range smartphones. The new Snapdragon 630 is an update for its current Snapdragon 625/626 processor while the Snapdragon 660 is an all new 14nm processor which replaces the popular Snapdragon 650/652 series.
Snapdragon 630
The Snapdragon 625 is a performer that’s frugal on power as seen on the Redmi Note 4, Moto Z Play and ZenFone 3 Zoom. Its successor, the Snapdragon 630 maintains the same 14nm processor with 8x ARM Cortex A53 cores that can be clocked higher up to 2.2GHz. According to Qualcomm, this would deliver 10% better performance than its current Snapdragon 625. The GPU is updated from an Adreno 506 to Adreno 508 which boasts up to 30% better graphics and gaming performance.
In the connectivity department, the Snapdragon 630 gets a newer Snapdragon X12 LTE modem that supports 3 carrier aggregation with 4G speeds up to 600Mbps and also 802.11ac WiFi with MU-MIMO. For better photography, it also comes with Qualcomm’s Spectra 160 dual 14-bit camera ISP which supports either a 24MP single camera or dual 13MP cameras.
Apart from excellent battery life, the new processor also supports Quick Charge 4 technology. With a supported brick, this could potentially give you 50% charge in just 15 minutes. Bluetooth 5.0 is also supported which offers faster transfer speeds and up to 4X the range.
Snapdragon 660
Closing the gap with its flagship series is its new Snapdragon 660 processor that’s manufactured with an efficient 14nm FinFET process. For the first time, Qualcomm is introducing a Kryo CPU in the mid-range family. It features 8x Kryo 260 CPU that can be clocked up to 2.2GHz which promises 20% better performance compared to its current Snapdragon 653. For graphics, it gets an Adreno 512 GPU which claims to provide 30% improvement compared to its current Adreno 510 GPU on the Snapdragon 650 series.
Like the Snapdragon 630, it also supports Qualcomm’s X12 LTE modem, Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP and Quick Charge 4 charging technology. For more info, you can check out the product pages for both Snapdragon 630 and Snapdragon 660.
