The mid-range Snapdragon 660 processor comes surprisingly close to top-end Snapdragon 835 chip in performance test

Earlier this month, US chip maker Qualcomm announced its brand-new Snapdragon 660 and 630 processors for mid-range phones and other smart devices. Benchmark scores of the 660 model appeared online, showing the chip is capable of surprisingly high performance that hovers near the flagship Snapdragon 835 model's teritorry.

In GeekBench (a prominent CPU performance test), the Snapdragon 660 – as present inside an unidentified smartphone code-named Heart – racked up 5,455 points in the multi-core test. Compared to the flagship Snapdragon 835 as present in the Samsung Galaxy S8+'s score – 6,301 points – that's a 15.5% difference. Not bad for a chip that's meant to power devices several times cheaper than Samsung's finest!

At the same time, the Snapdragon 660 is 16% more powerful than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 653 (as tested inside the Oppo F3 Plus smartphone). The latter acquired a score of 4,695 in the same test.

The lines between mid-range and high-end hardware become increasingly blurred

Single-core tests are less relevant, as the bulk of smartphone processing is a multi-core affair. But they are still available and read as follows: 1,588 for the Snapdragon 660, 1,832 points for the Snapdragon 835, and 1,438 points for the Snapdragon 653. The new processor enjoys a small bump over the older model, and keeps up not too far behind the flagship 835.

The Snapdragon 660 is built on a reasonably up-to-date 14nm production process, although Qualcomm and Samsung's high-end chipsets make use of a newer 10nm process. This makes them smaller and more power-efficient relative to their higher performance. The processor has eight 64-bit "Kryo 260" CPU cores with 2.2Ghz maximum speed, with the Adreno 512 graphics unit handling visuals. The processor supports high-end features, such as 4K video capture and playback, quick charging, the latest standards for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and LTE Category 13 uplink (150Mbps) / Cat 12 downlink (600Mbps) internet.