Qualcomm Adreno 540 vs Qualcomm Adreno 650 vs Qualcomm Adreno 640

Qualcomm Adreno 540

The Qualcomm Adreno 540 is an integrated graphics card in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC for smartphones. It was introduced in early 2017 and can be found in high-end Android smartphones. 

The integrated GPU is based on the optimized architecture of the Adreno 530, but features clearly improved clock speeds (710 versus 624 MHz according to Anandtech) and better thermal stability. This is also thanks to the new 10 nm process the Snapdragon 835 is produced in. In the reference smartphone from Qualcomm, the Adreno 540 is able to beat or perform at a similar level as the fastest smartphone graphics cards on the market (e.g. the ARM Mali-T880MP12, ARM Mali-G71MP8 or Apple A10 GPU). Therefore, it should be perfectly suited for demanding 3D gaming and also mobile VR and 4K displays.

Qualcomm Adreno 650

The Qualcomm Adreno 650 is a smartphone and tablet GPU that is integrated within the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 865+ and 870 SoCs. The chip will be available from early 2020 and will be used mainly in high-end Android devices. The base clock speed of the GPU is 250 MHz and the boost depends on the used SoC. For the 865 it is 587 MHz, the 865 Plus increased to 846 MHz and the 2021 870 reached 670 MHz.

According to Qualcomm, the Adreno 650 GPU offers a 25% improved performance over the Adreno 640, its predecessor, which is integrated into the Snapdragon 855 SoC. The enhanced performance is achieved by the Adreno 650 having 50% more compute units (ALUs) than the Adreno 640. Furthermore, the clock speed of the pixel shaders was also increased by 50%.

The performance in our first benchmarks of a reference system positions itself above the ARM Mali-G76 MP16 and e.g. in 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme even on the top spot. In GFXBench only the Apple A13 GPU is able to best the Adreno 650 (regarding smartphone GPUs).

As a novelty, the GPU driver can be updated in the Android Play Store. Furthermore, some features are running under the Elite Gaming brand (e.g., 144 Hz display support, desktop forward rendering). 

The Adreno 650 supports Vulkan 1.1, DirectX 12, OpenGL ES 3.2, and OpenCL 2.0 FP. Furthermore, games and videos can use HDR10+ and Dolby Vision (with a supported display). The 650 supports 2 displays with up to 4K 60 Hz / QHD+ 144 Hz.

Qualcomm Adreno 640

The Qualcomm Adreno 640 is a smartphone and tablet GPU that is integrated within the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. The chip will be available from early 2019 and will be used mainly in high-end Android devices.

According to Qualcomm, the Adreno 640 GPU offers a 20% improved performance over the Adreno 630, its predecessor, which is integrated in the Snapdragon 845 SoC. The enhanced performance is achieved by the Adreno 640 having 50% more FP16 and FP32 compute units (ALUs) than the Adreno 630, while its 7 nm FinFET manufacturing process makes it 20% more efficient too.

The Adreno 640 will also support the Vulkan 1.1 API, something which is possible for other Adreno 600 series GPUs too.