MWC 2012: Qualcomm announces new Snapdragon

Qualcomm has shown off a brand new version of its Snapdragon S4 processor, with a 'Pro' version announced at MWC 2012 alongside displays of the latest LTE technology.

The chip giant's Snapdragon has become a familiar sight in mobile devices, and the company is keen to keep up momentum with the arrival of the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 Pro.

The processor includes the Adreno 320 GPU to support high res displays, new multimedia capabilities and the ability to tap directly into the computational capability of its GPU through new APIs like Open CL.

Pro version

"As a result of strong customer demand for Snapdragon S4 processors, we've added a new Pro version of MSM8960 to continue delivering the highest performing mobile processors in the industry," said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management, Qualcomm.

"By delivering the S4 Pro processor in 2012, we are fulfilling our promise that Snapdragon processors will remain the industry's barometer for excellence in mobile computing while helping our customers bring the most innovative smartphones and tablets to market."

The S4 Pro version of MSM8960 is optimized for the most advanced operating systems, including the highly anticipated Windows 8 system.

Qualcomm is also showing off LTE broadcast at the show, which enables network operatios to adjust coverage and capacity dynamically, and its latest LTE chipsets that take advantage of HSPA+ release 10.

Snapdragon S4 “Krait” – MSM8960 GPU Benchmark Surfaces

A NenaMark 2 benchmark score for an unknown device based on Qualcomm’s upcoming 28nm Snapdragon S4 “Krait” MSM8960 SoC has just surfaced. The device seems to have 1.5Ghz CPU, a 1024x600 resolution display powered by an Adreno 225 GPU and running Android 4.0.3.

The Adreno 225 GPU scores 54.9 fps in the benchmark. To put things in perspective, a Galaxy S2, powered by the Mali-400 MP4 scores 46.2 fps. The important difference here is that the Galaxy S2 has an 800x480 resolution display, which makes the Adreno 225’s performance that much more impressive while powering a higher resolution display.

What remains to be seen is how the Adreno 225 stacks up against the current king-of-the-hill, the PowerVR SGX543MP2, the custom GeForce GPU in Tegra 3 and other upcoming GPUs such as the Mali T-604 and whatever Apple comes up with in its A6 chip. Given the raw performance offered by these next-gen GPUs, it won’t be long before we get console-quality gaming on our handheld devices.

Source: GSMArena via Nena

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CES 2011: Qualcomm Demos Snapdragon MSM8660

Qualcomm used CES to showcase their new dual-core Snapdragon parts, and they invited a group of bloggers to get their thoughts on the new chips. Qualcomm gave us a demo of the next generation Snapdragon development platform, with a Snapdragon MSM8x60 processor inside. The MSM8x60 has two Scorpion cores clocked at 1.2GHz and the Adreno 220 GPU, is built on the 45 nm process, and is set to show up in smartphones and tablets later this year.

Read on for more details.

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