Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 678

Qualcomm Snapdragon 712

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 (SD712) is a fast mid-range ARM-based SoC largely found on Android tablets and smartphones. Compared to the Snapdragon 710 predecessor, the 712 offers a 10% faster CPU and GPU due to clock rate increases (100 MHz for the CPU e.g.). It was announced early 2019 and positions itself between the 600 series (e.g. Snapdragon 660) and 800 series (e.g. Snapdragon 845). It integrates 8 Kryo 360 cores devided in two big cores (most likely based on Cortex-A75 at up to 2.3 GHz) and six small cores (most likely based on Coretx-A55 at up to 1.7 or 1.8 GHz). The memory controller supports LPDDR4X and the integrated graphics card is called Adreno 616. The X15 LTE modem supports 4x4 MIMO with up to 800 MBbit/s download and 150 MBit/s upload.

The Snapdragon 712 is manufactured in the modern 10 nm process at Samsung (10LPP).

Qualcomm Snapdragon 678

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 678 (SD678) is a mid-range ARM-based SoC largely found on Android tablets and smartphones. It features 8 Kryo 460 called cores (64-Bit capable) that are divided in two clusters. A fast cluster of two cores with up to 2.2 GHz and  based on the ARM Cortex-A76 design. And a power saving efficiency cluster with up to 1.7 GHz and based on much smaller ARM Cortex-A55 cores. Both clusters can also used together. Compared to the old Snapdragon 675, the clock speed of the cores was increased by 200 MHz for the A76 and 100 MHz for the A55 cores.

In addition to the 8 CPU cores, the SoC integrates a lower mid range Adreno 612 GPU, a X12 LTE Modem with up to 600 Mbps download (Cat 12) and 150 Mbps upload (Cat 13), a 802.11ac (Wifi 5) Wave 2 WLAN modem (up to 867 Mbps), a Bluetooth 5.0 radio, satellite positioning (GPS, QZSS, GLONASS, SBAS, Beidou and Galileo) and a video engine (up to 4k30 encoding and support for H.265, H.264, VP8 and VP9).

Performance

Compared to the old Snapdragon 675, the 678 is only slightly faster in our benchmarks. Thanks to the two fast Cortex-A76 based cores, the SD678 is able to even best the old high end Snapdragon 835 SoC in some benchmarks.

The Snapdragon 678 is produced in the same 11nm LPP (Low Power Plus) process at Samsung as the 675 which is a combination of 14nm and 10nm. Compared to 14nm LPP, the 11nm LPP process should be able to increase performance by 15% and decrease the chip size by 10% according to Samsung.