Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Snapdragon 888: Qualcomm has released its next-gen chipset, a successor to the last year’s Snapdragon 888 SoC. But how much of an upgrade is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1? And yes, so many things have changed from the naming style to the overhauling of the cores.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be powering many of the 2022 flagship Android smartphones. And since it comes with new CPU architecture, ISP, and new cores, it is expected to have an increased performance. Below is the full comparison.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Snapdragon 888: Process Technology

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is built on a 4nm process node and developed on ARM’s latest Armv9 CPU architecture. While last year’s Snapdragon 888 chipset was fabricated on a 5nm process and built on older Armv8 CPU architecture.

Thus, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is better because with smaller process nodes and newer CPU architecture comes better performance and advanced security.

• See Also: Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9000: chipset comparison

CPU

Both chipsets have the same 1+3+4 cluster design. But the cores and frequency have changed in favor of the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. The newer cores are more powerful and efficient.

CPU Core	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	Snapdragon 888
Power Cores	1x Cortex-X2	1x ARM Cortex-X1
Speed	3.0 GHz	2.84 GHz
Efficiency	3x Cortex-A710 4x Cortex-A510	3x ARM Cortex-A78 4x ARM Cortex-A58
Speed	2.5GHz 1.8GHz	2.4GHz 1.8GHz

Overall, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1’s CPU is 20% faster than the Snapdragon 888 while also reducing power usage by up to 30%.

• See Also: Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Apple A15 Bionic: chipset comparison

GPU

According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 GPU is 30% faster in performance with 25% less power than its predecessor Adreno 660. More so, the new Adreno GPU brings exciting gaming features such as Frame Motion Engine, Volumetric lighting, and Variable Rate Shading Pro. Making it the most advanced GPU Qualcomm has ever made.

See Also: Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 offers better CPU, GPU, Advance AI, and ISP

ISP

The Snapdragon 888’s image signal processor (ISP) was good, but this year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is better. The 18-bit HDR ISP on Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is capable of shooting 8k videos in HDR with electronic image stabilization.

Also, it can capture 240 photos of 12MP resolution in one second and there’s a dedicated engine for 4k Bokeh video recording. For advanced video editors, you can shoot in 18-bit RAW.

Moreover, according to Qualcomm, Low-light photography has seen 5x improvement over the Snapdragon 888. And unlike the Snapdragon 888 which could only capture and process 2.7 gigapixels per second, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 took it higher to 3.2 gigapixels per second.

Overall, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 ISP brings an advanced level of improvement over the Snapdragon 888’s ISP.

• See Also: MediaTek Dimensity 9000 5G Chipset arrives on 4nm Process with Cortex-X2 “ultra core”

Connectivity

Sometimes, new is better like in this case of 5G modem, the Snapdragon 888 uses Qualcomm’s X60 5G modem which is capable of downloading up to 7.5Gbps only. But the latest Snapdragon X65 5G modem is capable of delivering peak download speed up to 10Gbps. Aside from that both support mmWave and Sub-6GHz 5G band.

• See Also: Google Tensor vs Apple A15 Bionic: chipset comparison

Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Snapdragon 888: Conclusion

So is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 a worthy upgrade? Of course, its improvement over the Snapdragon 888 is ubiquitous. Let’s hope smartphone companies would take full advantage of the features brought by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.