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Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 855 ‘Plus’ – Its “Best Gaming Processor”

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 is a high-end chip that already powers flagship phones like the Galaxy S10 and OnePlus 7 Pro. The company is now ready to release a more powerful version of its Snapdragon 855 processor, called the “Snapdragon 855 Plus.”

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 Plus is aimed at mobile gamers and the company has called it its “best gaming processor.” It comes with an overclocked CPU and GPU to deliver a better gaming performance. Since it’s a mid-cycle upgrade, there aren’t any huge changes but there are a few notable improvements:

Difference between Snapdragon 855 and 855 Plus

The Snapdragon 855 Plus is still an eight-core, 7nm SoC, but the CPU and GPU are a bit faster due to higher clock speeds. The eight cores split into four efficiency cores, three performance cores, and a more powerful Prime core.

  • The ‘Prime’ CPU core has been clocked up to 2.96GHz in 855 Plus in comparison to 2.84GHz in the standard 855
  • In 855 Plus, the Adreno 640 GPU delivers 15% performance over the Adreno 640 in the 855. (Presumably, the 585MHz clock speed has been boosted up to something in the upper 600s)

Apart from these, the clock speed of other high-power cores remains the same at 2.42GHz, and the A55-based slower CPUs are still 1.8GHz in 855 Plus. The new chip also has the same X24 LTE modem as the standard 855.

From now onward, 855 Plus will probably be the company’s preferred 5G chip, given that it’s a bit faster. However, that doesn’t mean that the 5G setup is any different.

OEMs will still have to go for the separate X50 5G modem to link it to the 855 Plus. But this arrangement is only for now.

Qualcomm’s next-gen mobile processor is expected to integrate the X55 modem for LTE and 5G on a single chip. This will not only save power but also lower the cost of 5G phones.

According to Qualcomm, we will see Snapdragon 855 Plus powered phones towards the second half of 2019. Since it has been specifically designed for mobile gaming, it could arrive with upcoming phones like the game-centric Asus ROG Phone 2 which hasn’t been unveiled yet.

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