Qualcomm 6 Series' first 5G SoC Snapdragon 690 released: CPU performance increased by 20%

Qualcomm today announced the launch of the first Snapdragon 6 Series 5G mobile platform, Snapdragon 690, to accelerate the support of the Snapdragon product line for 5G, and to further promote the widespread popularity of 5G experience worldwide.

The Snapdragon 690 uses an 8-nanometer process technology and integrates an X51 baseband and radio frequency system. Snapdragon 690 supports different 5G frequency bands in the world, SA and NSA networking modes, TDD and FDD, and dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS); and supports global multi-SIM cards for the global market.

For the first time, the Snapdragon 690 brings many of the most popular mobile experiences to the Snapdragon 6 series.

In terms of video shooting, the Snapdragon 690 is also the first Snapdragon 6 series mobile platform that supports 4K HDR video shooting, and can support up to 192 million pixel photo shooting.

Snapdragon 690 is also the first Snapdragon 6 series mobile platform that can support 120Hz display, which can provide a very smooth UI experience.

In terms of AI, the Snapdragon 690 supports the fifth-generation Qualcomm AI Engine and integrates the Hexagon tensor accelerator, making the overall performance of AI up to 70% higher than the previous generation.

The Snapdragon 690 integrates a new optimized CPU architecture, providing up to 20% CPU performance improvement; meanwhile, its graphics rendering processing speed is increased by up to 60%.

According to Ma Xiaomin, director of product marketing at Qualcomm, the maximum downlink rate that can be supported on the Snapdragon X51 is 2.5Gbps. In terms of CPU, Snapdragon 690 uses Kryo 560 CPU, 2 large core A77 plus 6 small core A55 architecture; large core frequency A77 is 2.0GHz, small core frequency is 1.7GHz. The GPU is Adreno619L.

From the performance parameters and features, we can see that the Snapdragon 6 series is inheriting some 8 series and 7 series flagship features. For example, support for 4K HDR and Full HD and 120Hz screen display. Ma Xiaomin said that these function points will become one of the trends chased by consumers in the next period of time, and the Snapdragon 690 platform is fully prepared to meet such demand. This will also have a further impetus for the price of 5G terminals to sink.

It is expected that commercial terminals equipped with Snapdragon 690 will be available in the second half of 2020.