Today Qualcomm announced a new entry into its “upper mid-range” line-up of SoCs: The Snapdragon 712. The announcement is quite surprising, as it seems the chip might possibly simply be a higher bin variant of the Snapdragon 710:

Qualcomm Snapdragon Upper Mid-Range SoCs
SoC Snapdragon 710 Snapdragon 712 Snapdragon 675
CPU 2x Kryo 360 (CA75)
@ 2.2GHz 


6x Kryo 360 (CA55)
@ 1.7GHz
2x Kryo 360 (CA75)
@ 2.3GHz 


6x Kryo 360 (CA55)
@ 1.7GHz
2x Kryo 460 (CA76)
@ 2.0GHz
256KB L2

6x Kryo 460 (CA55)
@ 1.7GHz
64KB L2
GPU Adreno 616 Adreno 616
+10%
Adreno 612
DSP Hexagon 685 
ISP/
Camera
Spectra 250 ISP
32MP single / 20MP dual
Spectra 250 ISP
triple-camera support
Memory 2x 16-bit @ 1866MHz
LPDDR4X
14.9GB/s

1MB system cache
Integrated Modem Snapdragon X15 LTE
(Category 15/13)
DL = 800Mbps
3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM

UL = 150Mbps
2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM
Snapdragon X12 LTE
(Category 12/13)
DL = 600Mbps
3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM

UL = 150Mbps
2x20MHz CA, 64-QAM
Encode/
Decode
2160p30, 1080p120
H.264 & H.265
Mfc. Process 10nm LPP 11nm LPP

On paper, the only visible difference between the Snapdragon 712 and its predecessor seems to be a 100MHz boost on the part of the CPU cores. Qualcomm also claims that the new chip offers 10% faster graphics rendering compared to the 710, which would consecutively mean that the Adreno 616 is seeing a similar boost in its clock frequency.

At the time of writing we can’t see any other differences between the two products. As a reminder, Qualcomm Snapdragon branding not merely covers the SoC chip itself, but the whole platform which also includes accompanying components such as PMICs, WiFi chipsets, audio chipsets as well as RF front-end solutions for cellular connectivity. Stay tuned as we try to find out more and confirm on whether the chip differs in any other way.

Related Reading

Source: Qualcomm

Comments Locked

17 Comments

View All Comments

  • Mikl1984 - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link

    Main difference is Wi-Fi supporting 60 GHz
    Tri-band Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz with Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) + 60 GHz
  • Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link

    No. The 710 supported all of that already.
  • Mikl1984 - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link

    I am based on comparison
    https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-712-m...
    https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-710-m...
    Another difference QC 4+
    May be on paper only again :)
  • IGTrading - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link

    @Andrei Frumusanu : If Qualcomm offers the 712 for the same price as 710 or will move the 710 into a lower price bracket, then we kinda have Qualcomm competing with Qualcomm and competition is always welcome :)
  • phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link

    XDA is posting that the SD712 supports Qualcomm's True Wireless Stereo (or whatever they call it) for independent connections to a pair of wireless ear buds, and Broadcast Audio for sending BT Audio to multiple client devices simultaneously.

    However, they have some errors in their spec table so not sure if this audio bit is accurate or not.
  • danielfranklin - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link

    Isnt the true wireless thing just BT5.0?
    They may have updated the firmware stack or something in the BT of th 712 though i guess.
    Anyway, doesnt even look like a respin, just a small clockbump. I dont think there is anything different on the silicon.
    I wonder if their testing has shown the 2.3ghz Kyro 360 matching the 2.0ghz 460 in many tasks.
    I would still think the 460 in the SD675 would be faster in a number of tasks.
    I dont know much about Samsung 11nm process, apparently its more of a small tweak to the 14nm process.
    They should have just built the 675 with its Kyro 460 on 10nm with the 710 radio and stopped having so many SKUs and give better performance to everyone.
  • watzupken - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link

    I wonder why they even bother to come up with a +2 model for the purpose of a slight clockspeed bump...
  • niva - Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - link

    They don't. It's just the manufacturing processes are now better, allowing them to squeeze out more juice out of the processors at the same thermal envelopes.

    The firmware changes that might add new capabilities are probably based on existing research they're doing on any/all of their chips with a simple determination that it could also work on this one.

    In summary, these chips are the same in terms of production, with higher clocks and minor changes to the firmware within the chips/modems that allow more capabilities to be added. Since the end result is a better chip with more capability, might as well call it a new model.
  • zodiacfml - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link

    I can't think of a smartphone that has the 710 chip.
  • Solo450 - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link

    There are some that are sold in China only.
    But outside of China the Nokia 8.1 may currently be the only smartphone that has the SD710.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now