Snapdragon released its first Gen 5 chips last year with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the vanilla 8 Gen 5. Now the company is extending this generation into the entry-level and mid-range segments with chips from the 4 and 6 series. Both are focused on longer battery life, smoother UI and improved gaming performance.
Snapdragon 6 Gen 5
The headlining features of the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 (SM6850) are Adaptive Performance Engine 4.0 and Qualcomm Adaptive Performance FPS 3.0, which promise steady frame rates while gaming. Snapdragon Game Super Resolution is available to upscale visuals and help extend battery life.
The core details aren’t clear yet, but the CPU has four cores that run at up to 2.6GHz. This promises a tangible increase in single and multi-core performance since the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 had only one core running at up to 2.3GHz. The new Adreno GPU offers 21% higher performance. Meanwhile, Qualcomm managed to improve power efficiency by 8%.
Snapdragon 6 Gen 5
The Gen 4 chip was the first 6-series model to be fabbed on TSMC’s 4nm node and since official info for Gen 5 only states “4nm”, we assume it’s the same node. Like its predecessor, this chip supports LPDDR5 RAM at up to 3,200MHz. LPDDR4X is an option too for cheaper designs. The chip is designed to use UFS 3.1 storage. The display adapter supports displays up to 1080p+ at 144Hz. And no, there’s no AV1 decoding hardware yet.
Both chips feature something dubbed Snapdragon Smooth Motion UI. This aims to enable a smooth-scrolling, lag-free interface and faster app launches. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 launches apps 20% faster and has 18% less stutter than the Gen 4 chip, according to Qualcomm’s internal testing.
Next, the camera. Qualcomm equipped the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 with a dual ISP (12-bit), while the Gen 4 chip had a triple ISP. It supports single cameras up to 200MP (up to 64MP with Zero Shutter Lag, ZSL) or 16+16MP dual-cameras (vs. 32+16MP). The video encoding engine can handle 4K at 30fps, so no upgrade here (it can do H.264 and H.265).
Since we’re in the era of AI, Qualcomm loaded the chip with several AI-powered camera features like AI night vision, AI image quality enhancements and up to 100x digital zoom.
Moving over to connectivity, the 5G modem can deliver up to 2.8Gbps downlink speeds. However, it lacks mmWave support, which was present on the Gen 4 chip. Locally, Wi-Fi 7 is now supported with tri-band connectivity (2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz). The new chip has Bluetooth 6.0 (up from 5.4) and supports aptX Adaptive (but aptX Lossless support has been removed).
For positioning, the chip supports the major constellations and we see another omission – it only works with L1 and L5 bands, while its predecessor also had L2.
An even more questionable decision sees USB-C support drop to USB 2.0 levels, while the Gen 4 chip could handle USB 3.2 Gen 1. Maybe Qualcomm spoke to manufacturers and found that no one was using USB 3 on the phones that use the Snapdragon 4 and 6-series chips, but we’re just speculating.
Here’s a table that compares the Gen 4 and Gen 5 chips.
| Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 | Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 | Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 | Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2x 2.3GHz 6x 2.0GHz |
2x 2.4GHz 6x 2.0GHz |
1x 2.3GHz 3x 2.2GHz 4x 1.8GHz |
4x 2.6GHz 4x 2.0GHz |
| GPU | Adreno 613 | +77% | Adreno 810 | +21% |
| Display | 1080p+ @ 120Hz | 1080p+ @ 144Hz | 1080p+ @ 144Hz | 1080p+ @ 144Hz |
| RAM | up to 16GB LPDDR5 3,200MHz LPDDR4X 2,133MHz |
LPDDR4X 2,133MHz | up to 16GB LPDDR5 3,200MHz LPDDR4X 2,133MHz |
up to 16GB LPDDR5 3,200MHz LPDDR4X 2,133MHz |
| Storage | UFS 3.1 | UFS 3.1 | UFS 3.1 | UFS 3.1 |
| Camera | dual ISP up to 108MP |
dual ISP up to 108MP |
triple ISP up to 200MP |
dual ISP up to 200MP |
| Video | 1080p 60fps | 4K 30fps | 4K 30fps | 4K 30fps |
| 5G | sub-6GHz 2.5Gbps |
sub-6GHz 2.8Gbps Dual SIM Dual Active |
sub-6GHz + mmWave 2.9Gbps |
sub-6GHz 2.8Gbps |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 5 (dual-band) | Wi-Fi 5 (dual-band) | Wi-Fi 6E (tri-band) | Wi-Fi 7 (tri-band) |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.1 | Bluetooth 5.1 | Bluetooth 5.4 (aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless) | Bluetooth 6.0 (aptX Adaptive) |
| GPS | L1/L5 | L1/L5 | L1/L2/L5 | L1/L5 |
| USB | USB 3.1 | USB 2.0 | USB 3.1 | USB 2.0 |
| Charging | Quick Charge 4+ | Quick Charge 5 | Quick Charge 4+ | Quick Charge 5 |
Snapdragon 4 Gen 5
The Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 (SM4850) promises much of the same things as its 6-series sibling, but with an even bigger performance uplift over its predecessor – the Adreno GPU performance is up by an impressive 77% over the Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 GPU. This will be the first 4-series chip that can handle 90fps gaming, says Qualcomm.
Snapdragon Smooth Motion UI will deliver 43% faster app launches and 25% less screen stutter than the Gen 4. The CPU clock speed is a bit higher (2.4GHz vs. 2.3GHz) and the refined design should enable 10% power savings.
Snapdragon 4 Gen 5
However, the effects of the RAMpocalypse are on full display – the Gen 4 chip worked with LPDDR5 RAM at up to 3,200MHz, while the new Gen 5 chip only does LPDDR4X at up to 2,133MHz.
Cellular connectivity got a major upgrade with support for Dual SIM Dual Active 5G + 5G/4G, which will allow phones to connect to two networks simultaneously. The 5G modem has peak download speeds of up to 2.8Gbps (up from 2.5Gbps) by using 140MHz bandwidth (up from 100MHz) in the sub-6GHz bands.
Unfortunately, local connectivity barely got any upgrades – we’re still looking at dual-band Wi-Fi 5 (ac) and Bluetooth 5.1, now with aptX Adaptive. GPS supports the L1 and L5 bands.
The camera hardware is roughly the same with a dual ISP (12-bit) with support for cameras up to 108MP (up to 32MP with ZSL). The good news is that the video encoder can now handle 4K resolution. The display driver can handle 1080p+ resolution with a higher refresh rate – up to 144Hz (up from 120Hz).
Phones coming later this year
The first phones to be powered by the new Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 will be out in the second half of this year. Qualcomm confirmed that Honor, Oppo, Realme and Redmi are working on phones that will use the new silicon.
