While we won’t see any devices yet being powered by the Snapdragon 820, not until next year that is, Qualcomm has revealed quite a few details about the Adreno 530 GPU that will power the upcoming chipset. Well, when we say details, we mean just a light dusting of information that would have to tide us over until we finally see a device running the Snapdragon 820, which they say will happen in the first half of 2016 (which also means new Nexus devices released this year won’t have it).
The Adreno 530 GPU will be 40% faster than the Adreno 430, but will also bring 40% decrease in power consumption, even while doing the same workload. At least, that’s what Qualcomm is saying. It will be great news for OEMs still struggling with battery consumption issues, but we won’t rejoice just yet, as having the GPU run on an actual device is a different thing. They also say it has improved the graphic and image processing stacks as compared to the 400 series chips.
During their presentation at the SIGGRAPH 2015, Qualcomm also highlighted the Spectra image signal processor, which will only be carried by the Adreno 530, and said that it will greatly improve image processing, although they did not give enough details on that. Other potential benefits if OEMs will adapt the GPU is that there will be a reduction in noise in the mobile image sensors, it can support “zig zag” video HDR capture, increased autofocus performance and better correction of lens and sensor aberrations.
The Adreno 530 will support Miracast 4K30, HDMI 2.0 at 4K60, the new Vulkan graphics API slated for support in Android, OpenGL ES 3.1, and Open CL 2.0, which is pretty standard fare for a high-end GPU. So now all we have to do is wait for an actual de vice that will be running Snapdragon 820 to see if all Qualcomm’s promises and claims will come true.
SOURCE: Qualcomm
