Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Benchmarks: Mainstream Android phones get a big performance boost
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7-series mobile platforms traditionally offer solid performance and premium features at more mainstream prices than the company’s flagship 8-series platforms. However, Qualcomm kicks things up a notch with its latest iteration of the Snapdragon 7 series. The new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, recently announced at MWC 2023, will feature significant CPU, GPU, AI, imaging, and efficiency upgrades that should improve the performance and feature set of upcoming mainstream Android devices .
Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Specifications and Key Features Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 is designed to be relatively powerful. The Kryo CPU in the SoC offers a clock speed of up to 2.91 GHz, and Qualcomm claims that it will deliver a 50% performance increase over the previous generation Snapdragon 7. The new mobile platform features a top-of-the-line ARM Cortex X2 core clocked up to 2.91 GHz, three ARM Cortex A710s performance cores clocked up to 2.49 GHz, and four ARM Cortex A510s efficiency cores clocked up to 1.8 GHz. All of that is packed into a chip that should be able to handle modern smartphone workloads quickly and efficiently – albeit not quite as fast as the higher-spec Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, of course, which benefits from a more powerful Cortex X3 Prime Core for Example.
The GPU in the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 has also been significantly upgraded. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 offers an Adreno GPU, which Qualcomm says should deliver twice the graphics performance of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1.
In addition to CPU and GPU performance improvements, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 also offers select Snapdragon Elite Gaming features such as Auto Variable Rate Shading or VRS, which renders foreground and background objects with different shader detail levels to boost performance and efficiency. Added to this is the support of Snapdragon Sound and aptX for high-resolution and lag-free audio.
Other features offered by the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 include an 18-bit triple camera ISP that can capture 30 images and merge them for better low-light shots and supports a maximum resolution of 200 megapixels. It also features a new Qualcomm AI Engine that offers twice the performance of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1. Rounding out the package is the Snapdragon X62 modem for theoretical download speeds of up to 4.4Gbps.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Benchmarks While the chip was only recently announced, Qualcomm gave us the opportunity to test the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 at MWC 2023. This reference device offered a 6.65-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a 144 Hz refresh rate and 12 GB of RAM and was powered by a 4,192 mAh battery. GeekBench 5 results
GeekBench is designed to simulate real world processing loads through things like image processing, compression/decompression, etc. As you can see, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 reference device ended up somewhat in the middle when compared to other modern smartphones. have tested. We would of course have expected Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Gen 2 devices to beat the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. The only exception is perhaps the iPhone 11, which still beats the Snapdragon device in the single-core test, although it performs much worse in the multi-core test. AnTuTu and AITuTu Benchmarks AnTuTu is like GeekBench in that it returns nebulous results rather than concrete frame rates or other metrics, but the benchmark still makes it relatively easy to compare relative overall performance between devices.
AnTuTu offered a performance look similar to GeekBench 5. In general, the device performed well compared to most modern devices, even beating out some Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 equipped phones. However, the high-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 reference device, which topped the table, failed to catch up. This remained the case for most of AnTuTu’s results, although GPU performance would have placed the device lower in the rankings compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones.
AITuTu was designed to test AI inference performance, an area Qualcomm has focused heavily on in recent years. As you can see, the AITuTu scores are much more consistent than the AnTuTu values. Essentially, all Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones are at the top, including Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones, followed by the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. This shows that the new chip is a solid performer in the AI ​​department, but not quite as impressive as the top tier phones currently available. Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Gaming and Graphics Benchmarks Next we have some gaming and graphics benchmarks from a handful of popular testing tools. While CPU performance influences some of these tests, they are more focused on the GPU… The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 lands roughly in the middle of the field in the T-Rex and Manhattan tests, putting it behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 and Gen2 based devices, but way ahead of the previous generation mainstream devices and devices like the Google Pixel 7.
The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 ended up at the bottom of the stack, but that’s only because we didn’t represent many mainstream devices. As we’ve seen in previous tests, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 lags behind the high-end Snapdragon 8-based devices, but is capable of outperforming devices like the Google Pixel 6. It’s a relatively powerful mobile platform that generally places itself just behind the company’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Gen 2 SoCs, but ahead of competing mainstream platforms, across a range of benchmarks.
Virtually every aspect of the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 has been updated over the previous generation, resulting not only in increased CPU, GPU, AI, and overall platform performance, but also improved features. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2’s modem and WiFi capabilities have been updated, as has the 18-bit camera ISP, which is now essentially on par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The powerful Snapdraton Sight 18-bit ISP enables the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 to capture and process 3.0 GPixels/s, enabling a range of computed photography features that ultimately improve image quality, especially in difficult lighting situations.
We’ll have to wait and see how many devices will launch with Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 on board, but Qualcomm announced that phones from Redmi and Realme are already on the way and will be launching by the end of March. We expect others to follow as well, at prices below today’s flagships.
