Chinese leak claims Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 SoC may launch next month

Qualcomm usually showcases its flagship SoCs in December, while the first handhelds to feature the latest SoC model usually pop-up a few months later. This year, Qualcomm decided to break its release schedule with a mid-year launch of an intermediary model (the Snapdragon 855+). Meanwhile, Apple and Huawei launched their new flagship SoCs and Qualcomm is apparently feeling pressured, as Chinese sources suggest the U.S. chipmaker is actually considering to rush the launch of the upcoming Snapdragon 865 model.
 
Weibo user Digital Chat Station informs that the upcoming Snapdragon 865 could be showcased this November. Huawei’s newly-launched Kirin 990 seems to be very much on par with the Snapdragon 855+, so Qualcomm is enticed to rush the launch of the Snapdragon 865 in order to stay ahead in the performance race. Will it manage to beat the A13 Bionic from Apple, as well? It would be a first, but there are solid chances for this to happen, as Qualcomm has been optimizing its SoCs to compete with laptop CPUs from Intel AMD.
 
The Chinese leak also mentions that Qualcomm already arranged with Samsung, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi to showcase early prototypes powered by the Snapdragon 865 by the end of this year, but, as always, the commercial versions will most likely become available in the first quarter of the following year. However, this time around, to compete with Huawei’s propagandistic strategies in China, Qualcomm will initiate promotions for the smaller smartphone manufacturers via its local social media presence.
 
As far as specs go, Qualcomm only confirmed that the Snapdragon 865 will be manufactured on TSMC’s 7 nm EUV nodes, will get a 5G version along with a non-5G one, and will include ARM’s Cortex-A77 cores. We have yet to hear about the core configuration and clocks, and Qualcomm should also update the NPU.