The Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 MSM8996 is a high-end ARM-based SoC largely found on Android tablets and smartphones. Announced in mid 2016, the S820 is the successor to the Snapdragon 820 and from a technical perspective a higher clocked version of the SoC. In addition to 4 CPU cores (two slower clocked and two faster clocked Kryo cores), the SoC integrates an Adreno 530 GPU with a LPDDR4 memory controller and supports Wi-Fi (802.11ad + MIMO), Bluetooth 4.1, and LTE.
CPU
The Snapdragon 821 is based on a similar concept as ARM's big.LITTLE, which combines a low power CPU cluster (2x Kyro clocked at up to 1.6 GHz?) and a performance CPU cluster (2x Kyro clocked at up to 2.4 GHz). The clock speed of each cluster can be individually adjusted (but not per core) and the lowest clock speed is 310 MHz. The performance cluster features 1 MB L2 cache and the power saving one 512 KB. Both should be using the same architecture and fully support the ARMv8-ISA instruction set.
Although only four cores are used, the performance of the 821 is located in the high end of mobile CPUs for smartphones and tablets. The performance advantage of the 821 compared to the 820 depends on the used clock speed. E.g. in the Google Pixel, the SoC is only clocked at 2.15 GHz and therefore identical to many 820 SoCs.
GPU
The Adreno 530 outperforms the previous Adreno 430 especially in high demanding benchmarks. Therefore it is well suited of modern 3D games on Android devices and should rank slightly below the Tegra X1 GPU. Compared to the 530 in the 820, the 821 version should be up to 5 % faster, which speaks for a slightly higher clock speed.
Features
The Snapdragon 821 offers numerous wireless technologies such as Bluetooth 4.1, WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad (60 GHz) + MIMO as well as a dual-SIM cellular modem supporting LTE cat. 12/13 .
The SoC can encode and decode 4K videos using dedicated hardware (H.264 and H.265).
Power Consumption
Thanks to the new 14 nm process, the energy efficiency has been improved noticeably compared to its 20 nm predecessors.
| Codename | Kryo | ||||||||||||
| Series | Qualcomm Snapdragon | ||||||||||||
Series: Snapdragon Kryo
| |||||||||||||
| Clock Rate | 2400 MHz | ||||||||||||
| Level 1 Cache | 256 KB | ||||||||||||
| Level 2 Cache | 1.5 MB | ||||||||||||
| Number of Cores / Threads | 4 / 4 | ||||||||||||
| Manufacturing Technology | 14 nm | ||||||||||||
| Features | Adreno 530, LTE Hexagon 680 DSP, UMTS, GSM, WCDMA, Dual-SIM, eMMC 5.0, UHS-I, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz) + MIMO, Bluetooth 4.1, USB 3.0, Dual-Channel LPDDR4 Memory Controller | ||||||||||||
| GPU | Qualcomm Adreno 530 ( - 653 MHz) | ||||||||||||
| 64 Bit | 64 Bit support | ||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | ||||||||||||
| Announcement Date | 10/01/2016 | ||||||||||||
| Product Link (external) | www.qualcomm.com | ||||||||||||
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
LG G6: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
Review » LG G6 Smartphone Review
Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe ZS570KL: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
Review » Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe ZS570KL Smartphone Review
Xiaomi Mi Mix: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 6.40", 0.2 kg
Review » Xiaomi Mi Mix Phablet Review
OnePlus 3T: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
Review » OnePlus 3T Smartphone Review
Google Pixel XL 2016: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
Review » Google Pixel XL Smartphone Review
LG G Pad 5 10.1 inch: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 10.10", 0.5 kg
External Review » LG G Pad 5 10.1 inch
LG G7 Fit: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 6.10", 0.2 kg
External Review » LG G7 Fit
ZTE Axon M: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.20", 0.2 kg
External Review » ZTE Axon M
LG G6 Plus H870DSU: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » LG G6 Plus H870DSU
ZTE Axon 7S: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
External Review » ZTE Axon 7S
Vivo Xplay 6: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » Vivo Xplay 6
LeEco Le Pro 3: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
External Review » LeEco Le Pro 3
LG G6: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » LG G6
HTC U Ultra: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » HTC U Ultra
Asus ZenFone AR ZS571KL: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » Asus ZenFone AR-ZS571KL
Lenovo ZUK Edge: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
External Review » Lenovo ZUK Edge
OnePlus 3T: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
External Review » OnePlus 3T
Xiaomi Mi Mix: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 6.40", 0.2 kg
External Review » Xiaomi Mi Mix
Xiaomi Mi Note 2: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » Xiaomi Mi Note 2
Xiaomi Mi 5S Plus: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » Xiaomi Mi 5S Plus
Google Pixel XL 2016: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
External Review » Google Pixel XL 2016
Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe ZS570KL: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.70", 0.2 kg
External Review » Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe ZS570KL
OnePlus 3T: Qualcomm Adreno 530, 5.50", 0.2 kg
» OnePlus 3 and 3T will now not get 8.1 – but they will get 9.0
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