Qualcomm details its Snapdragon 845 chip: 30% more efficient, faster modem, 4K HDR

As promised, the second day of Qualcomm's Tech Summit seems to be completely dedicated to the newly unveiled Snapdragon 845 processor. There's a lot of technical info about Qualcomm's most advanced chipset to date, so we'll try to simplify it for you.

First off, the Snapdragon 845 is 30% more efficient than the previous top-tier chipset, the Snapdragon 835. Also, thanks to the new graphics processing unit (GPU), the Adreno 630, the chipset offers 30% improved graphics, video rendering, and power reduction compared to the previous generation.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 SoC (system-on-chip) accommodates a Kryo 385 CPU, a Hexagon 685 DSP (digital signal processor), a Spectra 280 ISP (image signal processor), AQustic Audio, as well as the company's fastest modem – the X20 Gigabit LTE radio.

The latter will be useful once US carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon will actually fire up their Gigabit LTE-compatible networks. The modem supports speeds of up to 1.2Gbps (LTE Cat 18) and features dual SIM-dual VoLTE (voice over LTE).

Moving on to the imaging features, the Qualcomm Spectra 280 ISP enables “Ultra HD premium capture,” which means phones equipped with this chipset can record 4K HDR videos at 60fps (frames per second). Moreover, thanks to this particular ISP, users can capture HD (720p) slow-motion videos at 480fps.

Security-wise, the Snapdragon 845 supports just about any type of biometric authentication methods you can think of, such as fingerprint, iris, voice, and face.

The Kryo 385 processor features four performance cores up to 2.8GHz, which are supposed to be 25% faster than the previous generation, as well as four efficiency cores clocked at 1.8GHz. The CPU is manufactured using the 10-nanometer FinFET process technology.

Last but not least, Qualcomm's new AQustic audio codec should provide a much better wake-word recognition, as well as improved playback and record features.

According to Qualcomm, the first smartphones equipped with the Snapdragon 845 will be unveiled in early 2018. Samsung, Xiaomi, LG, HTC, and Sony may be among the first smartphone makers to adopt the new chipset.