Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 launched for entry-level PCs and Chromebooks with a minor clock bump over its predecessor

Back during Qualcomm's 2019 Tech Summit, the company introduced the Snapdragon 7c Compute Platform alongside the Snapdragon 8c and 8cx. The Snapdragon 7c was intended to be the entry-level ARM offering for Always On, Always Connected Windows 10 laptops. Similar to the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 last year, Qualcomm is now refreshing the Snapdragon 7c to 7c Gen 2 today.

The Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 is an 8 nm part that is essentially the same SoC as the original Snapdragon 7c. The only new change here is the core clock bump in the Cortex-A76 cores from 2.4 GHz to 2.55 GHz. Other aspects such as the Adreno 618 GPU, Hexagon 692 DSP, which together with the Adreno 618 GPU and Kryo 468 CPU can yield 5 TOPs AI performance, Snapdragon X15 LTE modem, and the Spectra 255 ISP all remain the same. The Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 is, therefore, likely to be a better-binned version of the original 7c and not a true generational upgrade. 

According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 can offer up to 60% better productivity performance per watt in Windows 10 compared to Gemini Lake Refresh chips such as the Intel Celeron N4020 and, to a good extent, the Pentium Silver N5030.

Qualcomm also showed good leads in Chrome OS for the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 over rivals such as the Celeron N4020, MediaTek MT8183, and the Pentium Silver N5030 in Geekbench 5, GFXBench 5.0 1080p offscreen, and in overall battery life.

Therefore, while the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 doesn't come across as a particularly exciting SoC in 2021, it still has the potential to accomplish Qualcomm's goals with this platform — to cater to entry-level PCs and Chromebooks for students, front-line workers, and casual users with the promise of long battery life and always on LTE connectivity. 

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