Qualcomm SD X Adreno X1-85 3.8 TFLOPS vs Qualcomm Adreno 650

Qualcomm SD X Adreno X1-85 3.8 TFLOPS

The 3.8 TFLOPS Adreno X1-85 is an integrated graphics adapter that four Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips feature, as of Sep 2024. It has 1,536 unified shaders at its disposal that reportedly run at up to 1,250 MHz.

The faster 4.6 TFLOPS Adreno X1-85 iGPU is reserved for the 2 most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chips, the X1E-84-100 and the X1E-00-1DE. It runs at higher clock speeds of up to 1,500 MHz while delivering the same features and having the same hardware configuration as what the 3.8 TFLOPS flavor offers.

Architecture

The underlying architecture is reportedly (Chips and Cheese) in many respects the same as what was used in the Adreno 730, rendering the iGPU DirectX 12-compatible but not DirectX 12 Ultimate-compatible. Ray tracing is only supported via Vulcan 1.3. The highest OpenGL version supported is ES 3.2. The iGPU enjoys access to fast enough RAM but has comparatively small and slow caches to work with. AVC, HEVC and AV1 video codecs can be both hardware-decoded and hardware-encoded; with VP9, only decoding is possible.

The highest monitor resolution supported is UHD 2160p rather than SUHD 4320p.

Performance

Just like it is with AMD, Intel and Nvidia products, a lot depends on the power targets of a specific system. That being said, the iGPU's real-world performance is still a little underwhelming. While faster than the aging Intel Iris Xe (96 EUs), the Adreno doesn't even match the Radeon 780M meaning gamers will most likely not be happy with the Qualcomm iGPU at all. Baldur's Gate 3, a triple-A title released in 2023, is barely playable at 1080p on low with 23 fps on average. The same goes for Cyberpunk 2077 2.1 Phantom Liberty: 23 fps at 1080p on low graphics settings.

It is also worth mentioning that Qualcomm's graphics drivers aren't quite as polished as what AMD, Intel and especially Nvidia have to offer, leading to severe visual artifacts in certain games. A lot of games wont start at all.

Power consumption

X Plus 10-core as well as X Elite chips normally consume 35 W to 45 W of power, including the on-package RAM. This means the iGPU is unlikely to ever get to eat more than 30 W.

Since TSMC's N4P process is employed, it's safe to say power efficiency is going to be better than average with this iGPU, as of late 2024. Apple is still king in this area with its M-series CPUs and GPUs, of course.

Qualcomm Adreno 650

The Qualcomm Adreno 650 is a smartphone and tablet GPU that is integrated within the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 865+ and 870 SoCs. The chip will be available from early 2020 and will be used mainly in high-end Android devices. The base clock speed of the GPU is 250 MHz and the boost depends on the used SoC. For the 865 it is 587 MHz, the 865 Plus increased to 846 MHz and the 2021 870 reached 670 MHz.

According to Qualcomm, the Adreno 650 GPU offers a 25% improved performance over the Adreno 640, its predecessor, which is integrated into the Snapdragon 855 SoC. The enhanced performance is achieved by the Adreno 650 having 50% more compute units (ALUs) than the Adreno 640. Furthermore, the clock speed of the pixel shaders was also increased by 50%.

The performance in our first benchmarks of a reference system positions itself above the ARM Mali-G76 MP16 and e.g. in 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme even on the top spot. In GFXBench only the Apple A13 GPU is able to best the Adreno 650 (regarding smartphone GPUs).

As a novelty, the GPU driver can be updated in the Android Play Store. Furthermore, some features are running under the Elite Gaming brand (e.g., 144 Hz display support, desktop forward rendering). 

The Adreno 650 supports Vulkan 1.1, DirectX 12, OpenGL ES 3.2, and OpenCL 2.0 FP. Furthermore, games and videos can use HDR10+ and Dolby Vision (with a supported display). The 650 supports 2 displays with up to 4K 60 Hz / QHD+ 144 Hz.