Snapdragon 820: Qualcomm to re-adopt quad core architecture

At the last MWC, Qualcomm caused a surprise by announcing its next high-end processor, the Snapdragon 820, which is expected to arrive in the fourth quarter. Unlike the Snapdragon 810, which is based on ARM cores, its successor will equip itself with hearts named Kryo.

While the company did not specify how many hearts the new Soc would fit, several reports suggested that it would offer a quad core architecture. Today, a new Benchmark Geekbench confirms this rumor.

Four hearts for the Snapdragon 820.

A Geekbench benchmark of the Snapdragon 820 MSM8996 processor has just surfaced on the web confirming the presence of four cores in addition to eight. The scores are ridiculous for a Soc intended for the high end (just 700 points in single core and less than 2000 points in multi core) but that’s simply because its frequency is lowered to 1.46 Ghz instead of 3 Ghz. To get a real overview of its performance, we invite you to refer to the previous benchmark.

As we had already seen earlier this week, the Soc offers quite honorable performances halfway between the Snapdragon 810 and the Samsung Exynos 7420 which beats it on the multi core test but not on the single core test.
With the Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm will offer its first 64 Bit home architecture. ARM Cortex cores will be replaced by Kryo cores, which should keep away for good the overheating problems currently encountered with the 810.

In addition, Samsung is expected to manufacture the Soc with its 14 nanometer engraving process. Qualcomm’s new chip is expected by the end of 2015 in the next flagships of Sony, HTC and Xiaomi.

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