Meet the not-so-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 and 652 processors

posted by Ben R. / Dec 17, 2015, 10:02 AM

Meet the not-so-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 and 652 processors

Qualcomm has decided to change the names of the Snapdragon 618 and 620 to the Snapdragon 650 and 652 respectively. Qualcomm's intention is to help better differentiate these chips from the likes of the Snapdragon 615, 616 and 617, which the company sees as inferior enough to warrant the rebrand. Aside from the naming, the 'new' processors are no different to the old.

Versus other SoCs of the 6xx variety, the now-Snapdragon 650 and 652 offer a couple of advantages -- the Category 6 X8 LTE modem being chief among them. The new naming scheme certainly makes a degree of sense when the tech. specs are taken into consideration. With that said, renaming products that have already been released -- particularly given that Qualcomm already has an exhaustive list of mobile processors out in the wild -- seems a strange move at best. At worst, it's an unnecessarily confusing one.

In an official clarification post on its site, Qualcomm states that:

The Snapdragon 620 and 618 have significant user experience and performance advantages even within the current 600 tier of processors. Because of this, Qualcomm Technologies is making minor adjustments within the product lineup to better reflect the positioning and capabilities of these two processors by renaming the Snapdragon 620 and 618 to the Snapdragon 652 and 650.

Along with the Cat. 6 LTE, the Snapdragon 650 and Snapdragon 652 processors are supportive of 4K Ultra HD video capture and playback. Perhaps Qualcomm was worried that by running with numbers in the early 600s, users would underestimate what these chips are truly capable of.

Thoughts?

source: Qualcomm via Android Authority

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19 Comments

1. TylerGrunter

Posts: 1544; Member since: Feb 16, 2012

What I found strange is the old naming as there was a significant change in the CPU moving from A53 to A72 cores. The new names make a lot more sense.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 10:08 AM 7

16. vincelongman

Posts: 5653; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

Agreed, also IMO the 610 and 615 shouldn't have been apart of the 600 series Should have been apart of the 400 series The 650/652 seem like worthy successors to the 600

posted on Dec 18, 2015, 12:49 AM 1

2. greenelektron

Posts: 537; Member since: Sep 10, 2014

Mediatek's naming convention is so more confusing.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 10:30 AM 5

17. vincelongman

Samsung's too e.g. Exynos 5430 = 4x A15s + 4x A7s Exynos 5433 = 4x A57s + 4x A53s Exynos 7420 = 4x A57s + 4x A53s Exynos 7580 = 8x A53s

posted on Dec 18, 2015, 12:53 AM 1

3. Dude2014

Posts: 448; Member since: Feb 12, 2014

IMO it's a good move from Qualcomm since they have messed up their 6xx lineup with crappy SoC like SD 610, 615, etc in the last 2 years. When SD 600 was released, it was used as highend SoC in many popular flagship devices like Galaxy S4,HTC One, etc 3 years ago. So I think Qualcomm is trying to remake their SD 6xx lineup slightly highend. SD 652 is nearly high end SoC considering it features 4x 1.8 GHz Cortex A72 + 4x A53 and it got 1500+ in single core at GeekBench in recent leaks. And also its GPU is named as Adreno 510 that seems promising.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 11:19 AM 4

8. may_czos

Posts: 955; Member since: Nov 22, 2014

It scores about 1430-1470 in Geekbench single core test.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 2:05 PM 1

4. xperiaZlover

Posts: 202; Member since: Nov 15, 2015

Sd652 will be more powerful than sd810. So they definitely should change the naming. But the Gpu is weaker than adreno 430.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 11:42 AM 3

5. DoggyDangerous

Posts: 1028; Member since: Aug 28, 2015

sd620 is a very powerful cpu. They should put andreno 430 with it and should get it manufactured on TSMC 16nm process. Only bad point about this Soc is Andreno 510 and 28nm manufacturing process

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 12:19 PM 7

10. may_czos

It's a midrange SoC, it can't be too competetive.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 2:07 PM 0

6. jove39

Posts: 2143; Member since: Oct 18, 2011

S6xx series compete in very cost sensitive market...it's not possible for qualcomm to afford latest manufacturing process. For GPU...Best qualcomm would do is bump ALU count from 48 to 64. and bring it on par with first gen Adreno 320. Qualcomm would never bring powerful GPU to S6xx series simply to save cost and die space.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 12:54 PM 1

7. aesthetics

Posts: 128; Member since: Oct 02, 2014

510 will be a tiny bit more poweful than 330.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 1:42 PM 1

9. may_czos

Around Adreno 418.

12. jove39

Adreno 330 has 128 ALU...and I can bet Qualcomm would never put that many ALU in GPU for S6xx series. Adreno 405 (in S615, S616 and S617) has 48 ALU. Qualcomm would only put 64 (Adreno 320 1st gen) ALU in Adreno 510...and just in case...we are lucky...then 96 ALU (Adreno 320 2nd gen).

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 2:20 PM 1

15. TyrionLannister unregistered

I'm pretty sure benchmarks confirmed it to be more powerful than adreno 330. ALU just tells you the compute power. You can't just compare compute across generations of architectures.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 8:16 PM 1

18. may_czos

HTC One M8 (Adreno 330):https://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&D=Qualcomm+msm8952+%28Adreno+510%2C+development+board%29&testgroup=overall SD620/Adreno 510 test device:https://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&D=Qualcomm+msm8952+%28Adreno+510%2C+development+board%29&testgroup=overall

posted on Dec 18, 2015, 7:54 AM 0

11. may_czos

Samsung A5/A7 should've got one instead of crappy Exynos 7580.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 2:07 PM 2

13. Hexa-core

Posts: 2131; Member since: Aug 11, 2015

Yet, they still sells like hotcackes.

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 4:34 PM 2

14. kanagadeepan

Posts: 1232; Member since: Jan 24, 2012

Because Qualcomm licenses patents with their chip sales. In India, xiaomi can't sell phones with mediatek soc, else Ericsson will sure them for essential 2g, 3g patents. But can sell SD equipped phones...

posted on Dec 17, 2015, 7:41 PM 0

19. Astonvan

Posts: 237; Member since: Aug 14, 2015

I want SD 652 on the next moto G. Motorola needs to up thier specs on G now .even if it cost a little more also i wouldnt mind it.But please no more 4xx .