Qualcomm Reveals Snapdragon 820 And Adreno 530 Processors At SIGGRAPH

Qualcomm has just unveiled its next top-end Snapdragon chip, and not surprisingly, its promises are grand. A highlight of the Snapdragon 820, and also the upcoming 620 and 618, is the Adreno 500 series GPU. The beefiest chip will be treated to the Adreno 530, while the 6XX models will get the slimmed-down 510.

Continuing the Snapdragon evolution, the Adreno 530 is said to be 40% faster than the 430, and 40% more power efficient, to boot. The chip will also feature Qualcomm’s new image processor called Spectra, which could be as much of an upgrade as the performance is.

Unreal Engine Demos On Adreno 530

Spectra’s biggest selling-points include a hybrid autofocus and multi-sensor algorithms. It’s composed of dual 14-bit ISPs that can manage three cameras at once, and thanks in part to improved compression techniques, it supports up to 25 megapixel sensors and can record at 30 FPS.

Other Adreno-related perks include support for OpenGL ES 3.1+AEP (Android Extension Pack), Renderscript, OpenCL 2.0, and Vulkan. Through HDMI 2.0, it can also deliver 4K video at 60 FPS. Lastly, Qualcomm’s EcoPix and TruPalette technologies help provide improved battery-life and high-quality pixel output.

There’s no telling when the Snapdragon 620 and 618 chips will drop, but Qualcomm says that we won’t see 820-equipped devices until the first half of 2016.