While at the 2013 International CES, we dropped by Qualcomm’s booth to check out their upcoming flagship quad-core mobile processor, the Snapdragon 800, which succeeds last year’s Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset (think: HTC Droid DNA & LG Nexus 4). Understandably, since the Snapdragon 800 won’t debut in retail smartphones and tablets until mid-2013, Qualcomm didn’t have any consumer products powered by the CPU on display; however, the chip-maker had an Android development tablet available for demonstration purposes. In the video above, we get a glimpse of enhanced versions of Gameloft’s The Dark Knight Rises and Asphalt 7: Heat, as well as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Fortress Fire technical demo running on a tablet fueled by the powerful Snapdragon 800 processor.
[Direct YouTube Link]
The Snapdragon 800 Processor Features and Details
- Quad Core Krait 400 CPU—speeds up to 2.3 GHz, per core.
- Adreno 330 GPU—featuring patented Flex Render Technology and leading edge API’s that are designed to expand the use of GPU processing for general computing and other SoC tasks, the Adreno 330 GPU offers a 2 times better compute performance than Adreno 320.
- 2x32bit LPDDR3 RAM at 800MHz – with industry-leading memory bandwidth of 12.8GBps.
- 4G LTE Cat 4 and 802.11ac—these connectivity options offer blazing fast, seamless connectivity with cellular modem boasting data rates up to 150 Mbps and 802.11ac at speeds up to 1 Gbps.
- UltraHD—video can be captured, played back and displayed in UltraHD (previously called “4K.”) The resolution has four times as many pixels as 1080p. (1920x 1080 versus 4096 × 2304)
- HD Audio—support for DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus and 7.1 surround sound.
- Dual Image Signal Processors (ISPs) up to 55MP – with support for up to four cameras and allows for 3D captures, photo merging into a master 55MPixel image, separate autofocus and captures, 1080p30 video captures.
- Overall Performance Boost—the Snapdragon 800 processor is expected to deliver up to 75% better performance than the Snapdragon S4 Pro.
- Not only will you see this Snapdragon 800 processor in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, but it will be featured in computing and consumer electronic devices such as Smart TVs and digital media adapters.
- Snapdragon 800 processors are sampling now and expected to be available in commercial devices by mid-2013.