Potential Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 set to rival the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 as specs leak

After debuting the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 back in December, Qualcomm finally looks set to bring a sub-premium chipset to the market. While it's currently unconfirmed what moniker the SoC will bear, rumors indicate it could be the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, and a new leak has now provided some important details.

As revealed by Digital Chat Station, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1—as it will be referred to until further information on the contrary surfaces—will be an octa-core chipset with four Cortex-A710 cores, and four Cortex-A510 cores. That means it will adopt ARM's V9 architecture as seen on chipset like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, MediaTek Dimensity 9000, and Exynos 2200, albeit without a Cortex-X2 super core. 

On the GPU end, the new chipset is said to feature an Adreno 662. One can assume that to be a direct successor to the Adreno 660 on the Snapdragon 888, although Qualcomm's naming scheme isn't always as straightforward as should be expected.

Naturally, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1's closest rival seems to be the MediaTek Dimensity 8100, a chipset that surprisingly betters last year's Snapdragon 888 in performance and efficiency. The Dimensity 8100 looks to be at a disadvantage as it uses older architecture in the form of Cortex-A78 and Cortex-A55 cores. Newer isn't always better, though, especially as ARM's current Cortex-A710 cores have displayed slightly worse efficiency than the older Cortex-A78 cores.

At the moment, it's unknown if the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be built by TSMC or Samsung. Considering the shenanigans around the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, that could be a major factor in determining how successful the new chipset will be. 

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