The Snapdragon 865 is undoubtedly the most impressive processor for Android phones right now, owing to its all-around power, bundled 5G modem, and expansive multimedia capabilities. The company thinks it can offer something a little better for the second half of the year, as it’s just announced the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus. Much like last year’s Snapdragon 855 Plus was a minor upgrade over the Snapdragon 855, we’re looking at a similarly incremental update.
As we saw with the Snapdragon 855 Plus, the Snapdragon 865 Plus delivers improved speeds for the Prime CPU core and for the Adreno 650 GPU. The Prime CPU core now sees a leap from 2.84GHz to 3.1GHz, breaking the 3GHz barrier in the process. The other CPU cores don’t see any changes though.
Read: How to understand Kryo CPU numbering in Qualcomm Snapdragon processors
Meanwhile, Qualcomm says the Adreno 650 GPU is now capable of 10% faster graphics rendering compared to the vanilla Snapdragon 865 GPU. The chipmaker hasn’t disclosed the actual clock speed of the Snapdragon 865 Plus GPU though.
Nevertheless, the graphics boost should help keep things smooth, especially as more brands and developers embrace high refresh rates.
What else does the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus offer?
These aren’t the only tweaks made to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus, as the processor also sports upgraded wireless connectivity via a FastConnect 6900 suite. This update means you’ve got Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 instead of Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 on the vanilla flagship silicon.
Otherwise, Qualcomm is offering all the major Snapdragon 865 perks here on the upgraded chipset. That means 144Hz refresh rates, 8K video recording, support for 200MP stills, comprehensive 5G support (mmWave and sub-6GHz), and Quick Charge 4 Plus.
Asus and Lenovo have both confirmed that they’ll be among the first brands to support the new SoC, in the form of the ROG Phone 3 and the rumored Legion Gaming Phone.
In saying so, we previously saw the likes of Google and Samsung stick with the standard Snapdragon 855 several months after the Snapdragon 855 Plus was around. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple of OEMs stick with the standard Snapdragon 865 either.
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