In late October 2018, Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 made a debut in the mid-range processor series as a successor to the Snapdragon 670. Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 675 focuses on three essential areas — Artificial Intelligence, photography, and gaming. Also, it packs the 4th generation Kryo cores. On paper, the chip could go toe-to-toe with Snapdragon 660, which was the first mid-range SoC to include a few features initially limited to the flagship Snapdragon 800 series. So, is the new Snapdragon 675 a worthy upgrade over the popular Snapdragon 660 mobile processor? Well, let’s find out. Before we begin, let us have a quick rundown of the important specs.
Specifications That Matter
Performance
Mostly, the mid-range processors like the Snapdragon 660 and 636 are fabricated using Samsung’s 14nm LPP FinFET process. Now, mobile processors are adopting smaller process nodes for better power efficiency and the Snapdragon 675 follows the same path. It utilizes Samsung’s innovative 11nm fabrication process. The new 11LPP fabrication process is based on Samsung’s 10nm BEOL (Back End of Line) interconnect that results in smaller chips and borrows features from the 14nm nodes. If we talk numbers, the 11LPP process delivers up to 15% higher performance, and at the same time reducing the area by 10%. Moving on to the CPU architecture, the Snapdragon 660 comprises of four semi-custom ARM Cortex-A73 ‘performance’ cores clocked at 2.2 GHz and four Cortex-A53 ‘efficiency’ cores clocked at 1.7 GHz. On the GPU end, the Snapdragon 660 houses the mid-range Adreno 512 which is designed to render graphics efficiently. Plus it also supports graphics APIs such as Vulkan 1.0 and OpenGL ES. The Snapdragon 675 sports eight Kryo 460 cores clustered across two ‘performance’ A76 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz and six ‘efficiency’ Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.7 GHz. This change in architecture is expected to give a 20% boost in overall performance. Aside from it, the Snapdragon 675 houses the Adreno 612 GPU. Naturally, this GPU supports the latest graphics technologies like Open GL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan, and DirectX 12. The Snapdragon 675 is optimized to provide you a smoother gaming experience with lesser janks. On paper, the Snapdragon 675 packs a punch when it comes to performance. We did a quick face-off between the Snapdragon 675-powered Vivo V15 Pro (6 GB) and the Snapdragon 660-powered Xiaomi Mi A2 (4 GB), and the results are for you to see. Though benchmark scores portray the potential of the chipset, the real world experience may differ, as it depends on optimizations made by the phone makers. Plus, the results will also vary from phone to phone, even if the same chipset powers them. Also, let us not forget that many phone manufacturers try to manipulate benchmark scores.
The Game of the Lens
With triple cameras becoming the new norm, the Snapdragon 675 will give the phone the ability to operate three concurrent cameras at the front and three at the back. Plus, it also gives the option of saving 5X telephoto, 2.5X wide-angle, and super wide-angle captures. It also bundles the Qualcomm Spectra 250L ISP, which is optimized to capture details in vivid color and it can support up to a 25-megapixel camera. On the specs front, the 675 supports a dual camera up to 16-megapixel, single camera up to 25-megapixel, and snapshots at 48 megapixels. We captured the following picture using the Snapdragon 675-powered Vivo V15 Pro. As opposed to that, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 is capable of supporting only a two camera gig. It can support single lenses up to 25-megapixel and dual camera modules up to 16-megapixels. To add to it, the Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP and Qualcomm Clear Sight help capture clear pictures with less noise and accurate color reproduction. We captured the following picture using the Snapdragon 660-powered Xiaomi Mi A2. You shouldn’t consider the quality of these photos as the final output. After all, several factors affect the picture quality including the tweaks and optimizations included in the camera app by the phone manufacturer.
Connectivity and Charging Techniques
It’s surprising that Qualcomm equips the old X12 LTE modem in the new Snapdragon 675 as well since the Snapdragon 660 also carries the same radio. The X12 LTE modem can deliver download speeds of up to 600 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 150 Mbps. The Snapdragon 675 arrives with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4+, while the Snapdragon 660 bundles Quick Charge 4.
The AI Game
The Snapdragon 675 doesn’t have a dedicated neural processor. Instead, it bundles a multi-core Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence Engine which is a combination of the Hexagon 685 DSP, Adreno 612 GPU, and the Kryo 460 CPU. This engine improves the ability to process information while helping the phone’s camera to capture high-quality photos. At the same time, the Snapdragon 660 supports Qualcomm’s Neural Processing Engine (NPE) SDK which works with AI frameworks such as Caffe/Caffe2 and Google’s TensorFlow. This SDK gives the needed boost in scene recognition, phrase identification, and word matches.
Is It a Worthy Upgrade
You can safely consider the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 a worthy iteration in the 600-series. It packs in many improvements including a new & improved heart, a slightly quicker charging technique, and the results are there for you to see. So to answer the question— yes, the Snapdragon 675 seems to be a worthy upgrade over the reigning the Snapdragon 660 chipset. Next up: Intrigued about how the Snapdragon 660 fares against the Snapdragon 636? Read the comparison below to find out more. The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
