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Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

Qualcomm SD 855

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in December 2018. The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 2.84 GHz and three further fast ARM Cortex-A76 performance cores, which can reach up to 2.42 GHz. These are complemented by four power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock up to a maximum of 1.8 GHz. The higher ‘Prime Core’ clock speed should provide significantly better single core performance than the Snapdragon 845, but we suspect that the Snapdragon 855 will fall short of the Apple A12 Bionic. The new SoC should have up to 45% faster single-core performance and 35% multi-core performance than its predecessor. Qualcomm praises the Snapdragon 855’s ability to maintain its performance when faced with sustained load, beating the Apple A12 Bionic SoC and the HiSilicon Kirin 980.

The SoC also integrates the new X24 LTE modem that Qualcomm promises will deliver up to 2 Gbit/s maximum download speed over LTE Cat.20 and up to 316 Mbit/s upload speeds. The Snapdragon 855 can be configured with the company’s new X50 5G modem too.

Qualcomm has also improved the integrated Wi-Fi modem, which is Wi-Fi 6-ready, has 8x8 Sounding and supports up to 802.11 ay Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi modem can utilise the 60 GHz mmWave band for up to 10 Gbit/s internet speeds.

The Hexagon 690 DSP has undergone the most revisions of that which Qualcomm has integrated into the Snapdragon 855. The new DSP incorporates a neural processing unit (NPU) with dedicated Tensor-cores that can execute up to 7 trillion operations per second in conjunction with the CPU and GPU. In short, the Snapdragon 855 should be three times faster than the Snapdragon 845 and two times faster than the Kirin 980 SoC.

The Snapdragon 855 also has a Spectra 380 ISP onboard, which is the world’s first chip to incorporate a Computer Vision Engine (CV-ISP) that can perform depth calculations in videos at up to 60 FPS. The Snapdragon 855 should deliver real-time portrait modes or be able to detect objects with relatively low power consumption.

The built-in memory controller supports up to 16 GB LPDDR4x RAM (4 x 16-bit). Moreover, the Adreno 640 has 50% more compute units (ALUs) than the Adreno 630, while Qualcomm claims that it should be 20% faster than its predecessor. We currently do not know what clock speeds the Adreno 640 will operate at as Qualcomm did not announce these during the announcement of the Snapdragon 855.

Qualcomm will manufacturer the Snapdragon 855 at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) using a 7 nm FinFET process. The switch to 7 nm manufacturing should make the SD855 20% more efficient than the SD845. Qualcomm has not officially announced the thermal design power (TDP) of the SD855, but we suspect that the SoC will reach a maximum of 5 W and will average around 3.5 W under load.

SeriesQualcomm Snapdragon
CodenameCortex-A76 / A55 (Kryo 485)

Series: Snapdragon Cortex-A76 / A55 (Kryo 485)

Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 compare - 2.96 GHz8 / 8 cores5 MB L3 Cortex-A76 / A55 (Kryo 485)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ / 855 Plus compare - 2.96 GHz8 / 8 cores5 MB L3 Cortex-A76 / A55 (Kryo 485)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 « 2.84 GHz8 / 8 cores5 MB L3 Cortex-A76 / A55 (Kryo 485)
Clock Rate2840 MHz
Level 2 Cache1.8 MB
Level 3 Cache5 MB
Number of Cores / Threads8 / 8
Power Consumption (TDP = Thermal Design Power)5 Watt
Manufacturing Technology7 nm
FeaturesX24 LTE Modem, Adreno 640 GPU
GPUQualcomm Adreno 640 ( - 585 MHz)
64 Bit64 Bit support
ArchitectureARM
Announcement Date12/05/2018
Product Link (external)Qualcomm Snapdragon SD 855

Benchmarks

Performance Rating - Geekbench 5.1, PCM Work, Sling Shot Physics, Antutu v8 CPU
43.2 pt (75%)
3DMark - 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Physics
min: 20636     avg: 32923     median: 31198 (26%)     max: 45072 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Unlimited Physics
min: 1934     avg: 3937     median: 4112 (52%)     max: 5024 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot (ES 3.0) Unlimited Physics
min: 2345     avg: 3892     median: 4095.5 (58%)     max: 4703 Points
Geekbench 4.1 - 4.4 - Geekbench 4.1 - 4.4 64 Bit Single-Core
min: 3406     avg: 3480     median: 3491 (36%)     max: 3537 points
Geekbench 4.1 - 4.4 - Geekbench 4.1 - 4.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
min: 10187     avg: 10955     median: 10987.5 (12%)     max: 11388 points
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
min: 1852     avg: 2147     median: 2114 (2%)     max: 2611 ms
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
min: 17011     avg: 23240     median: 23937 (23%)     max: 25640 Points
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
min: 90     avg: 105.2     median: 106.5 (25%)     max: 129 Points
PassMark PerformanceTest Mobile V1 - PerformanceTest Mobile V1 CPU Tests
min: 197214     avg: 236383     median: 246456 (32%)     max: 265478 Points
PCMark for Android - PCM f. Android Work Score 2.0
min: 8342     avg: 9710     median: 9664 (63%)     max: 11440 Points
PCMark for Android - PCM f. Android Work Score
min: 10330     avg: 12161     median: 11890 (59%)     max: 14439 Points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

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