A recent leak coming out of Embedded World 2015 in Nuremberg, Germany revealed a sixth-generation Skylake motherboard with the LGA1151 socket from ASRock. The motherboard is not targeted at consumers, but is instead aimed at the industrial/embedded segment. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is rumored to unveil its next-generation processors sometime next year, although there isn’t a clear timeline as to when we may see retail availability of Skylake-based hardware.

From the images, it can be seen that the motherboard features two DDR3L-1600 SO-DIMM slots that can accommodate a total of 16GB memory. The feature highlights the fact that OEMs can select either DDR3 or DDR4 with Skylake. The motherboard leak also gives us a look at the ports on offer, which include one PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, one miniPCIe port, two SATA 6Gb/s connectors and one mSATA port. There isn’t an M.2 port, but seeing as how there are no SSDs marketed at this segment, it may turn out to be ASRock opting to not include the port. Also seen on the board are three HDMI ports, four USB 3.0 ports along with two Ethernet ports.

A leak of the roadmap from mainboard vendor DFI — who makes boards solely for the embedded segment — show 17 chipsets targeted at workstation, desktop and mobile categories. The image in question highlights C236 as being targeted for workstations, with Q170 and H110 dubbed as chipsets for desktops. The TDP for desktops is given as 35, 65 and 95W, with the last number slightly higher than the 88W TDP maximum we’ve seen with Haswell. For mobile, the TDP is listed in between 15 to 45W. Interesting

Broadwell is set to make its debut on the desktop, with current rumors pointing to a launch sometime in Q2 2015.

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If you’re looking for a high speed set of DDR4 RAM there are no shortage of choices these days, even if supplies are still fairly tight.  The HyperX Predator line from Kingston is fresh on the scene and is hoping to be the choice for many enthusiasts with its competitive pricing.  This kit is the 16GB Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 3000 C15 quad channel kit ( HX430C15PB2K4/16 ).  It has two XMP profiles, of which are 3000 15-16-16-39 2T and 2666  14-14-14-36 2T.  Having the multiple XMP profiles provides a bit of comfort knowing that there are two good configurations provided with the kit that are set and forget.  These modules were a sample and did not come with the regular retail packaging, so what photos we have are limited to the actual modules.  Thankfully, you don’t buy memory for the packaging.  You buy it for the performance, and boy did this set post some very impressive results.

Specifications:

• Model – HX430C15PB2K4/16
• Type – 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM
• Capacity – 16GB (4 x 4GB)
• Speed – DDR4 3000 (PC4-24000)
• Cas Latency – 15
• Voltage – 1.35V
• Multi-channel Kit – Quad Channel Kit

Features

• Power Supply: VDD=1.2V Typical
• VDDQ = 1.2V Typical
• VPP – 2.5V Typical
• VDDSPD=2.2V to 3.6V
• Nominal and dynamic on-die termination (ODT) for data, strobe, and mask signals
• Low-power auto self refresh (LPASR)
• Data bus inversion (DBI) for data bus
• On-die VREFDQ generation and calibration
• Single-rank
• On-board I2 serial presence-detect (SPD) EEPROM
• 16 internal banks; 4 groups of 4 banks each
• Fixed burst chop (BC) of 4 and burst length (BL) of 8 via the mode register set (MRS)
• Selectable BC4 or BL8 on-the-fly (OTF)
• Fly-by topology
• Terminated control command and address bus

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MSI (TPE:2377) announced today the new MSI X99S Gaming 9 ACK, a version that has been updated with the latest Killer DoubleShot Pro.  This will compliment the Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN that the board already has.

The new X99S Gaming 9 ACK from MSI is its latest motherboard release and the upgrade is one that should be an improvement for gamers.  The addition of the new Killer 1525 802.11 ac Wi-Fi module is the upgrade that makes this board the “ACK” variant.  The new module can help gain 2.9x faster data throughput compared to traditional wireless-N solutions.  MSI claims that the Killer Wi-Fi also has up to 3.5x lower latency than similar wireless solutions.  The coupling of the Killer LAN and Killer Wireless-AC module is being called “Doubleshot Pro”, which has been in the most recent MSI gaming notebooks.  If the reviews from the users of the new notebooks are anything to go by the solution should work very well.  The nicest thing about Doubleshot Pro is that it has Smart Teaming, which gives more usable bandwidth by using both the LAN and wireless to support up to 1.866Gbps of bandwidth.

The board will be the exact same as the current X99S Gaming 9 AC but the only difference will be the wireless module.  Some users are not fans of the Killer Network app that prioritizes traffic, so it is good to note that it is not required to be running when using the hardware.  The Smart Teaming feature may be a good choice with the Gaming 9 since the streaming could get a boost from the extra bandwidth.  Other network intensive multitasking will also get a boost if the Smart Teaming feature is utilized.

There will also be a Z97 Gaming 9 ACK that is being released that implements the Killer DoubleShot Pro as well, the same board design will also stay in that model.

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Samsung (KRX: 005930) announced Tuesday that it has begun production of DDR4 memory on the 20 nanometer process node, targeting Enterprise users.

“Our new 20nm 8Gb DDR4 DRAM more than meets the high performance, high density and energy efficiency needs that are driving the proliferation of next-generation enterprise servers,” said Jeeho Baek, Vice President of Memory Marketing at Samsung Electronics, in a statement. “By expanding the production of our 20nm DRAM line-ups, we will provide premium, high-density DRAM products, while handling increasing demand from customers in the global premium enterprise market.”

The DDR4 DIMMs have a voltage of 1.2V and a data transfer rate per pin that maxes out at 2,400 Mbps. Samsung said that using the 20nm process node as well as 3D through silicon via (3D TSV) technology means that these 32 GB DIMMs are only a stepping stone, and the company is targeting 128 GB modules in the future.

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Today we will take a look at some DDR4 from Corsair, the Vengeance LPX 16GB (4x4GB) CL15 memory kit.  DDR4 is brand new and is used motherboards featuring Intel’s new X99 chipset using s2011-3 processors. DDR4 uses 1.2v standard as opposed to the 1.5-1.65 that is now standard in DDR3.  It can operate at higher frequencies with much less voltage needed, being much more efficient.  Running in quad channel the memory will provide much more bandwidth than that of dual channel systems by a hefty margin.  This kit is some of the entry level DDR4 from Corsair, but as you will see they have much more to offer if you do some tweaking.

Specifications:

• CMK16GX4M4A2666C15R
• 16GB (4 x 4GB)
• DDR4 2666 (PC4-21300)
• Cas Latency – 15
• Timings – 15-17-17-35 2T
• Voltage – 1.2V
• Quad Channel Kit
• Anodized Aluminum Heat Spreader
• Low-profile heatspreader design
• Intel XMP 2.0

Design and Build Quality

The build quality of these RAM modules is top notch as expected with Corsair products that are currently available.  The heatsinks are of high quality and look great in the motherboard with no defects visible.  The PCB from visual inspection looks very clean and made of high quality materials.  The kits have single sided Hynix MFR for the ICs and are now the type that is most coveted by overclockers.

Performance

This kit was really impressive as the performance that was achieved with the XMP profiles and with overclocking was much better than was expected.  In these tests you will notice that they are done with varying uncore frequencies.  This was done by adjusting the frequency in the bios to achieve the overclock.  This is very important as it has a huge effect on the performance of your memory. Even at the same speed and timings there will be a huge performance gain from the simple act of overclocking the cache/uncore.  It should be noted that these tests were run on the ASUS Rampage V Extreme, as it is the best board on the market currently for achieving the highest RAM and cache/uncore clocks.  This is attributed by the inclusion of its OC Socket that is a non reference s2011-3 CPU socket.  The results with the 4000MHz and 4500MHz cache/uncore speeds may possibly be harder or impossible to replicate on other boards. be addressed is cache/uncore speed .  The first XMP profile is 15-17-17-35 2T at 2666MHz with 1.2v, the second XMP profile is 15-17-17-35 2T at 2800MHz with 1.35v.

When checking to see what these modules were set to auto and then run while increasing the speed until it could no longer be stable and boot into windows.  The max that was achieved was 3070MHz with the RAM set to 1.5v.  Running the memory at these speeds would have required setting the memory to 2T and having loose timings, which would not equate to the best performance possible from the memory.  To find the best possible performance that would be possible a memory profile from the Rampage V Extreme for single sided Hynix was needed to be loaded.  Selected was a profile for 3000MHz 1.65v, though it could not load it at 3000MHz.  This was expected since this isn’t exactly a highly binned set of Hynix MFR, so 2750 was tried.  This was a success at 12-14-16-15 1T with the 1.65v, and proved to be better performing than the other combinations that were tried.  Please bear in mind that if running DDR4 at over 1.4v additional cooling is a must or damage to the modules may occur.

Test setup

• Asus Rampage V Extreme
• Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 C15 #CMK16GX4M4A2666C15R
• Intel i7 5960X @ 3.5GHz
• Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
• Cooler Master V1200 PSU
• MSI R9 290X Lightning

AIDA64

Higher is better

Here it is seen that the write speed is impacted more than anything else with the increase in the cache/uncore speed.  The read performance also makes a big improvement, though not as drastically as the write did.  At 3000MHz  the read was 58532MB/s, the write was 46945MB/s, and copy was 60979MB/s with a latency of 71ns.  At 3500MHz it was 62801MB/s – 5480MB/s – 62948MB/s with a latency of 68.7ns.  At 4000MHz it was  65685MB/s – 62046MB/s – 62853MB/s with a latency of 67.1ns.  At 4500Mhz the results were 67654MB/s – 69344MB/s – 63552MB/s and the latency was the lowest at 66.2ns.  These results are good and fall in line with what you would expect from running at these speeds

Higher is better

The write and read speeds increase at the same rate as the other XMP profile, but here the speed is a decent amount faster due to the speed increase of the RAM. The results at 3000MHz cache/uncore were 61124MB/s – 47798MB/s – 64022MB/s and a latency of 68ns.  At 3500MHz the  results increased to 66168MB/s – 55563MB/s – 66290MB/s with 66.1ns latency.  The 4000MHz results came in at 69620MB/s – 62917MB/s – 67165MB/s and 64.6ns latency.  4500MHz returned the best results of 71367MB/s – 68829MB/s – 67348 MB/s and 63.9ns.  Being able to obtain a read speed of over 70000MB/s on the XMP profile was very good and was better than expected.

Higher is better

Here the RAM was set up by using the settings that was able to get the most bandwidth from, very tight timings and sub-timings were used.  It is visible to see just how much proper tuning of the timings can affect the performance when comparing to the XMP2 results. It can be seen that with some work these can perform on par or better than kits that are much more money, though a better binned set would likely require lower voltage at similar speeds and timings.  The results at 3000MHz were 62777MB/s – 47441MB/s – 68236MB/s and a latency of 63.4ns.  At 3500MHz they were 69794MB/s – 55169MB/s – 70848MB/s and 61.4ns latency.  The 4000MHz results were 74104MB/s – 62848MB/s – 72438MB/s and 60ns latency. 4500Mhz results were 76194MB/s – 70482MB/s – 71528MB/s and the lowest latency of all at 58.9ns.

Super Pi mod 1.5  32m

Lower is better

It is visible in this benchmark that is heavily influenced by RAM just how big of an effect that boosting the cache/uncore speed will have on the performance of a system.  The results for the super pi benchmark was 8:58.620 at 3000MHz, 8:54.301 at 3500MHz, 8:51.562 at 4000MHz, and 8:48.809 at 4500MHz. these results fall in line with the increased performance of the memory with the cache/uncore speed increase.

Lower is better

It is visible that XMP profile 2 at 3000MHz uncore/cache frequency is about as effective as the first one at 4500MHz.  The reduced time of about 10 seconds is substantial in this benchmark.  The results were 8:48.747 at 3000MHz, 8:44.192 at 3500MHz, 8:39.953 at 4000MHz, and 8:38.684 at 4500MHz.  Again, this is in line with what is to be expected from the memory performance increases like the previous test.

Lower is better

This result shows just how helpful to the benchmark memory speeds are to Super Pi, though in this one it looks like there was a bigger gain by increasing the cache/uncore than the other two. The results are 8:52.772 at 3000MHz, 8:47.063 at 3500MHz, 8:45.019 at 4000MHz, and 8:42.833 at 4500MHz.  It is interesting to see that the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz was far greater than the others.

SiSoft Sandra

Here it is clearly seen that increasing the cache/uncore frequency that it is possible to increase the bandwidth greatly, and the results are on par with what was expected.  The results are 52.68GB/s Aggregate, 52.36GB/s Integer, and 53GB/s Float at 3000MHz.  At 3500MHz the results were 54.65GB/s Aggregate, 54.1GB/s Integer, and 55.21GB/s Float.  At 4000MHz the results were 55.78GB/s Aggregate, 55.27GB/s Integer, and 56.3GB/s Float.  The results are in line with what was to be expected, though the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz showed the biggest improvement.

Looking at the results here it is possible to see that the increase gained from increasing the speed from 2666 to 2800 resulted in an increase of about 3GB/s across the board. The results at 3000MHz are 56.3GB/s Aggregate, 56GB/s Integer, and 56.64GB/s Float.  At 3500MHz the results are 58GB/s Aggregate, 57.52GB/s Integer, and 58.61 Float.  At 4000MHz the results were 59.2GB/s Aggregate, 58.76GB/s Integer, and 59.65GB/s Floar.  At 4500MHz the results were 59.71GB/s Aggregate, 59.15GB/s Integer, and 60.28GB/s Float.  Again, it is seen that the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz is by far the greatest leap of gain made.

Now with taking a look at these results it is clearly visible that properly configured timings at a lower speed can greatly outdo itself running at higher speeds with looser timings. The results are 60.39GB/s Aggregate, 60.49GB/s Integer, and 60.29GB/s Float at 3000MHz.  At 3500MHz the results were  63GB/s Aggregate, 62.7GB/s Integer, and 63.2GB/s Float.  At 4000MHz the results were 64.33GB/s Aggregate, 64.11GB/s Integer, and 64.55GB/s Float.  At 4500MHz the results were 65.14GB/s Aggregate, 64.91GB/s Integer, and 65.37GB/s Float.  What is able to be seen here compared to the XMP profile 2 test is that the tightened timings and sub-timings plays a great deal in helping the overall bandwidth.

User Experience

The RAM exceeded expectations in both how it performed with the XMP Profiles, but also with overclocking.  This set of RAM is fun to tweak and will reward the user with great results from the time they spend tweaking things to perfection.  This RAM performs well in 1T and will go quite far before it needs to switch to 2T to become more stable.  It was clear to see why overclockers enjoy working with the Hynix MFR DDR4, it performs great and is so tweakable with more voltage applied.  When testing to see what these could do, I tried to find the settings for the best bandwidth that I could get.

Value

Being essentially an entry level kit and being able to overclock so far and tweak it to perform so much better makes this a killer deal.  It would definitely be something to consider when it comes time to build a new DDR4 system.  Seeing what fellow overclockers were able to achieve with this kit has been astonishing since it perform better than other kits that cost hundreds more.

Should I buy this?

If you are looking to get something that you want to tweak a bit or be able to get more performance out of then this is it.  For $316.37  it is a great buy indeed, and this kit has received the Value Award from BSN*.  It has been a lot of fun to test this kit as I was surprised about how much performance can be squeezed out of these, and with more time with them I know that they can do even better.  I like to push my equipment to the max and see what it will do and these definitely proved themselves during testing.

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Although there are several DDR4 kits available for X99 motherboards, most modules are clocked at 2133 MHz and 2400 MHz.

G.Skill is looking to remedy that with the launch of its latest memory modules, which are clocked at 3333 MHz. Dubbed Ripjaws 4, G.Skill is looking to cater to the enthusiast segment with these modules, which will be available in quad-channel variants (4x4GB). In addition to the 3333 MHz modules, G.Skill is also launching slightly lesser clocked 3300 MHz and 3200 MHz kits in 16 GB (4x4GB) configurations.

The modules feature a CL timings of 16-16-16-36, which comes out to a latency of 9.6 nanoseconds. G.Skill was able to validate the latencies on a Rampage V Extreme. Base voltages for the modules are at 1.35V, which leaves a lot of overhead for overclocking. G.Skill is no stranger to overclocking, with the vendor stating last week that it was able to achieve a frequency of 4004 MHz using a liquid nitrogen cooled configuration.

Featuring a sleek black design scheme, G.Skill’s 3300 MHz and 3200 MHZ Ripjaws 4 modules will be available from September 5 on Newegg, with the 3333 MHz 16GB kit available now for $699. Other countries are slated to receive the modules later this year.

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Back in 2003, AMD introduced the Opteron processor, world’s first 64-bit x86 processor capable of addressing more than 4GB of memory (32-bit) – no less than massive 1TB of memory, courtesy of its 40-bit allocation table. Processors of today are capable of addressing up to 8TB of SDRAM memory thanks to extended (46-bit) allocation table. However, until now, finding a high-capacity memory module with 32GB density was as rare as finding hen’s teeth and usually you would pay top dollar for it.

Upcoming 20nm manufacturing process enabled the creation of ultra-dense memory modules and with SK.Hynix launching its 20nm 8Gbit memory chip, there was no doubt something special was in the works.

SK.Hynix 128GB 64×8 PC4-2133P-L80-19 – World’s first 128GB DIMM memory

For SK.Hynix, the end result is world’s first 128GB memory module, designed for the new DDR4 memory standard. While there is no way that this memory would become a mainstream part (at 20nm node), it shows that the DRAM industry is ready to offer something special for the upcoming server processors from Intel and AMD. This memory module also makes the first time TSV (Through Silicon Via) technology was used, utilizing vertical DRAM silicon stacking, e.g. 3D chips (not transistors).

If a typical server CPU comes with eight DIMM slots, with this module you will be able to pair each processor with 1TB of DDR4-2133 memory, resulting in 68GB/s of available bandwidth. While this is ways away from a high-end desktop / workstation usage, the existence of 128GB module will drive the price of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB modules down, with 64GB modules expected to drop down in price by over a half.

There’s also a matter of the way how DDR4 works, reducing the voltage from 1.35V or even 1.5V (initial DDR3 modules) to 1.2V. The current (A) did go up, so do not expect great power savings coming from the memory side of things, but the sheer capacity should make up for it.

We expect this memory in working demo systems at the upcoming ISC’14 supercomputing conference (June 22-26), which takes place in Leipzig, Germany.

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Qualcomm has been fairly quiet about their high-end ambitions after what is expected to follow the soon-to-launch Snapdragon 805 chipset. The Snapdragon 805 is Qualcomm’s chip that will likely ship in devices next quarter and is marketed by Qualcomm as their 4K chip with the Adreno 420 GPU.

Now, even though the Snapdragon 805 (APQ8084) is a very powerful chip, it lacks 64-bit capability and doesn’t have an integrated modem, requiring a separate modem like Qualcomm’s 20nm MDM9x35 to enable cellular capability. It also sports an improved Krait CPU with a Krait 450 CPU compared to the Snapdragon 801 and 800’s Krait 400. However, it still doesn’t quite satisfy Qualcomm’s need for a very powerful chip that looks into the future. The Snapdragon 805 is the chip for now.

That leads us to today’s announcement of the Snapdragon 810 and Snapdragon 808 chips. The Snapdragon 810 and Snapdragon 808 mark the first time that Qualcomm has ever announced a high-end 64-bit chip and the first time they have implemented ARM’s own cores into their SOC. Both the Snapdragon 810 and Snapdragon 808 will feature ARM’s A57 and A53 64-bit cores with the Snapdragon 810 being a 4 big + 4 LITTLE and the 808 being 2 big + 4 LITTLE in a big.LITTLE configuration. This marks a pretty big shift in the company’s attitude towards big.LITTLE when you consider that they were saying that their cores were good enough that they didn’t need to do a big.LITTLE configuration. And the fact that Qualcomm now has a high-end SoC that supports the ARMv8 64-bit instruction set architecture. Keeping in mind that they are already shipping the Snapdragon 410 to the middle of the market with an A53-based 64-bit CPU.

To me, and many others, it seemed like Qualcomm was poo pooing what Samsung and others were doing, and now they’re effectively doing the same with these two chips’ CPU cores. However, Qualcomm explained that they were reacting to market demand for 64-bit capable chips and that they wanted to deliver them to their customers as requested. They said that because their own custom 64-bit ARM CPU cores weren’t necessarily timed for what the market has demanded, they have adjusted and are delivering a 64-bit solution as quickly and effectively as they can with ARM’s cores. This can all be traced back to Apple’s release of the A7 64-bit chip in the iPhone 5S and how much they fundamentally shook the foundations of the mobile SoC world and what people were demanding.

In addition to the 64-bit ARM A57 and A53 cores, Qualcomm is integrating their modem directly into the SoC’s die, bringing the SoC and modem into one chip once again. Because they are integrating their 20nm MDM9x35 chip, they already know what they can expect to see from the modem side of things in terms of performance and power savings. Additionally, because Qualcomm has been working on 20nm with their modem, they could proof and tweak the process in anticipation for these Snapdragon chips. Because they both share the same modem, they will both be capable of Cat 6 LTE enabling LTE Advanced features globally with a single design. When paired with Qualcomm’s RF360 front-end solution, both chips will be capable of 3×20 MHz Carrier Aggregation, resulting in up to 300 Mbps download speeds in various spectrum scenarios.

The Snapdragon 810 will also be one of Qualcomm’s 4K-focused chips with the introduction of a 4K HEVC hardware video encoder as well as a 14-bit dual ISP (image signal processor) capable of 1.2 GP/s and supporting image sensors up to 55 MP. And because Qualcomm wants to focus on 4K so heavily with the Snapdragon 810, they once again bumped the GPU to an Adreno 430 which should bring 30% faster graphics performance when compared to the Adreno 420 in the Snapdragon 805. They also took a very serious look at the GPGPU compute capability of the Adreno chip and improved it by 100% all while reducing power consumption by 20% when compared to its predecessor. The Adreno 430 will also support OpenGL ES 3.1 which was recently announced as a standard, even though I suspect many of their currently available OpenGL ES 3.0 capable hardware could be updated to 3.1 via driver update as well. In addition to OpenGL ES 3.1 support, the Adreno 430 will also support hardware tessellation, geometry shaders and programmable blending. The Snapdragon 810 also will be Qualcomm’s first SoC to support LPDDR4 memory which means better performance and lower power consumption for high-end devices utilizing this SoC.

One of my biggest complaints about many SoC vendors as they’ve started to try to attach themselves to 4K is the fact that none of these GPUs, no matter how powerful, are capable of 3D graphics in 4K. The amount of horsepower it takes to do 3d graphics in 4K is absolutely insane and is far outside of the realm of these mobile SoCs, for now. As such, we were given clarification that most gaming in 4K on these devices will be done at 1080P and upscaled to 4K on whatever display it’s being played on. So, whenever you hear 4K gaming being mentioned, that’s likely what you are going to be seeing, even though its really 1080P gaming being upscaled to 4K. After all, almost all of the mobile games are built for 720P or 1080P and not anything much higher.

In contrast to the Snapdragon 810, the Snapdragon 808 is a very similar chip to the Snapdragon 810 but it takes more of a smartphone focus rather than a 4K tablet one. Even though, either chip can be used for a smartphone or tablet, it would just be more cost prohibitive to put a Snapdragon 810 in a smartphone. The Snapdragon 808, as we stated earlier is a slightly differently configured chip with a dual ARM Cortex-A57 plus quad Cortex-A53 CPU configuration, so technically it’s a sexacore or hexacore chip rather than an octocore like the 810.

The Snapdragon 808 takes more of a focus on future smartphone resolutions with a targeted design for WQXGA resolution of 2560×1600 (close to the Oppo Find 7) even though that phone has a 2560×1440 resolution, it’s essentially the same resolution. It does, however, have an Adreno 418 GPU, which actually puts it below the Adreno 420 and Adreno 430 which are both targeted towards 4K resolutions. The Adreno 418 claims to deliver 20% faster 3d graphics than the Adreno 330 in the Snapdragon 800, giving a slight performance boost to smartphones even though they’ll be handling much higher resolutions. In fact, the 2560×1600 resolution is double the pixels of the current 1920×1080 on most smartphones, which in my eyes, should justify more than a 20% improvement over the current generation. The doubling of pixels is especially important when you consider exactly when this SoC is expected to be shipping in devices.

The Snapdragon 808 will also support 12-bit dual ISPs as opposed to the Snapdragon 810’s 14-bit dual ISPs, resulting in less performance available to the image sensors to utilize. It will also support LPDDR3 rather than LPDDR4 support in the Snapdragon 810.

Now, if you take into account the Snapdragon 810 platform as a whole, you would be looking at an 8-chip solution, assuming that you were to go with Qualcomm’s RF360 RF front-end (WTR 3925 and WTR 3905) as well as their PMICs (power management integrated circuits) and their 2×2 WLAN chip (QCA6174A) that enables 802.11ac and MU-MIMO. They also have an NFC chip (QCA1990) and an audio codec that round out their full Snapdragon 810 platform, which is if you want to go Qualcomm the whole way.

Based on what I see here, I would say that the Snapdragon 810 will likely be a pretty attractive part for many looking to win the spec wars against their competitors and that we’ll probably see it used in both phones and tablets. I say this primarily because of the fact that even though the Snapdragon 808 is a slightly dialed down version of the 810, I’m simply not convinced that it will be powerful enough to deliver a smooth experience at 2560×1600 and to enable what I’d expect to be upscaled gaming (in the short term). The Snapdragon 810 really looks to be a great part, but it will be interesting to see where it will fit in their stack once Qualcomm eventually shows off their own custom 64-bit CPU cores, the successor to Krait. Judging by Qualcomm’s own marketing they really seem to be focusing on the Snapdragon 810, and I can totally see why. I think we will see more devices launching with the 810 than we will with the 808, even though the 808 will be in a more affordable price range. A flagship chip is a for flagship devices and manufacturers want to make sure they are putting in the best possible at that time.

Both the Snapdragon 810 and Snapdragon 808 are expected to be sampling in the second half of 2014 and shipping in devices in the first half of 2015.

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