After a lot of guesses about what Qualcomm might name its next flagship SoC, details about the same have surfaced online. They suggest that it will be called Snapdragon 898. So, if we are to follow the naming scheme, Qualcomm might call 898’s successor 900? Well, that’s certainly not what we’re going to discuss here.
What we will discuss are the key differences between the Snapdragon 888 Vs Snapdragon 898. In the end, let’s find out if it’ll be worth upgrading to Snapdragon 898-powered flagships from a Snapdragon 888-powered flagship.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 898: What’s new?
The leak comes from a renowned Chinese leaker, Ice Universe, who posted on Weibo that the next Qualcomm SoC will be called Snapdragon 898. We’ll have a lot more to talk about and compare once the specs are officially revealed, but as of now, all we know is that one of the cores in the SoC is the Cortex-X2, which was announced in May this year.
The same is clocked at 3.09GHz. ARM claims that it’s 16% faster than its predecessor, the Cortex-X1 found in the Snapdragon 888 and 888 Plus and the Exynos 2100. Another area where the 898 should perform better is efficiency, as the same is fabricated on a 4nm FinFet process. If you’re new to the tech space, you might want to read our Snapdragon Vs Exynos comparison.
What’s also rumored to change is Qualcomm’s usual CPU cluster, i.e., the 1+3+4 design (One prime core, three high-performance cores, four efficient cores). The Snapdragon 898 will reportedly split the last four cores into two parts. The overall architecture will be one 1x Cortex-X2 + 3x Cortex-A710 + 2x Cortex-A510 + 2x Cortex-A510 (clocked lower).
And this makes sense, considering the Snapdragon 888 and Exynos 2100 were power-hungry processors. And when combined with modern-day flagships’ higher refresh rate displays, the battery life wasn’t all that great. The two Cortex-A510’s clocked at lower speeds should technically result in better overall battery life.
The Cortex-X2, on the other hand, compensates for the same, and the overall processor still ends up being 16% more powerful.
Snapdragon 888 Vs Snapdragon 898: Is it worth upgrading?
The answer is obviously no. The performance of flagship processors has almost reached a saturation point. Hence, the difference may not feel humongous until you benchmark both of them.
That said, with a better cluster, due to the lower-powered cores, the Snapdragon 898 should be more power-efficient. However, we have no details about the modem, Image processing unit, and the AI engine that Qualcomm likes to brag about.
If you have a Snapdragon 888-powered flagship, it doesn’t make any sense to switch to Snapdragon 898 unless you can afford it. We don’t know its launch date yet, but it should be unveiled in November or December, judging by Qualcomm’s past launch events.
Either way, what are your opinions on the same? Let us know in the comments section below.
