HiSilicon Kirin 710 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 429 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 450

HiSilicon Kirin 710

The HiSilicon Kirin 710 is a ARM-based mid-range Octa-Core-SoC for Android based smartphones and tablets. It was announced mid 2018 and contains 8 processor cores (4x Cortex-A73 at up to 2.2 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 at up to 1.7 GHz, BigLITTLE), an ARM Mali G51 MP4, a dual-channel LPDDR4 memory controller and a LTE radio (600 Mbps down, 150 Mbps up). Therefore, the CPU part is similar to the Kirin 960 and 970 (both higher clocked), but the graphics card is a lot slower. 

The Kirin 710 is manufactured at TSMC in 12 nm (compared to the 16nm Kirin 960 and 10nm Kirin 970).

The HiSilicon Kirin 710F is the same chip with a different package (FCCSP - Flip Chip Chip Scale Package) and offers the same specifications (see e.g. our review of the Huawei P Smart Z).

Qualcomm Snapdragon 429

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 429 is an ARM-based entry level SoC for tablets and smartphones (mostly Android based). It was announced in mid 2018 and integrates four 64-Bit Cortex-A53 CPU cores (quad-core) that clock with up to 2 GHz. Furthermore, there is a Adreno 504 graphics card, a LPDDR3 memory controller (max. 933 MHz) and wireless radios for WiFi and 4G/LTE included in the chip.

The Cortex-A53 is the successor of the entry level Cortex-A7 CPU cores. The A53 is now capable of 64 Bit (ARMv8-ISA) and addressing more than 4 GB RAM. According to ARM the performance per MHz is a lot better and even surpasses a Cortex-A9 core.

The integrated Adreno 504 ist the integrated graphics card that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 / 3.2 and Vulkan 1.0. According to Qualcomm, the GPU is 50% faster than the previous Adreno 308 in the Snapdragon 425.

The integrated wireless radios support WiFi 802.11ac Wave 2, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/GLONASS/Baidou, 2G, 3G and 4G (LTE Cat.4 / Cat.5 - 150 Mbits download, 75 Mbits upload) standards. Futhermore, the SoC is able to decode 1080p videos in H.265 (encode only in H.264) and cameras with up to 13 MP.

The power consumption of the chip is ranging in the lower range, and therefore it is also suited for smaller smartphones. It is manufactured in the modern 12nm process.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 450

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 (SD450) is a lower mainstream SoC for (Android based) smartphones and tablets. It features eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores at up to 1.8 GHz and is already manufactured in the power efficient 14nm process. The integrated X9 LTE modem supports Cat. 7 with maximum transfer rates of 300 Mbps (downstream) and 150 Mbps (upstream). The SoC also includes an Adreno 506 GPU with support for Vulkan and OpenGL ES 3.1. WiFi 802.11ac (1x1, max 364 Mbps) and Bluetooth 4.1 are supported as well. The memory controller supports LPDDR3 (single channel) and the integrated video engine supports H.264 (encode and decode) and HEVC (only decode) in 1080p.