Qualcomm Details the Adreno 530 GPU and ISP inside the Snapdragon 820
by Brandon Chester on August 12, 2015 9:35 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Adreno
- Mobile
- Tablets
- Snapdragon 820
Snapdragon 820 is still a mystery as far as official information from Qualcomm goes. However, today Qualcomm has given a bit of insight into their upcoming SoC. While there's still no information about the CPU portion featuring Qualcomm's custom 64-bit cores known as 'Kryo', there are some details about the Adreno 510 and 530 GPUs, as well as Qualcomm's Spectra image signal processor.
Because Adreno 530 is their new flagship GPU, Qualcomm's press release focuses more on the 530 than the 510. The performance figures released by Qualcomm describe Adreno 530 as being 40% faster than Adreno 430 on average, while also consuming 40% less power. This result is described as an average of "the top graphics benchmarks", and while it's still generally a good idea to take vendor provided numbers with a grain of salt, if the power and performance gains over Adreno 430 are anywhere in the ballpark of Qualcomm's 40% figure then Adreno 530 should end up being quite impressive.
On the API side, Adreno 500 series GPUs will support OpenGL ES 3.1 + AEP (Android Extension Pack), Renderscript, Vulkan, and OpenCL 2.0. With OpenCL 2.0 comes support for Shared Virtual Memory (SVP), which allows an OpenCL host program and a device's kernel to share a virtual address space so access to data structures like lists and trees can be easily shared between the host and GPU. Adreno 530 has varying improvements to GPGPU performance when compared to Adreno 430, but Qualcomm's slides show video processing as demonstrating the greatest improvement with a 2.5x increase in compute performance. This is also the area where efficiency gains for generational improvements typically happen, so we expect fixed-function codec support although this information is not yet provided.
As for the ISP, it's still the case that mobile image signal processors are black boxes. Qualcomm is stating that their Spectra ISP in Snapdragon 820 will be able to support 3 simultaneous cameras at up to 25MP and at 30fps with no shutter lag. The Spectra ISP will also use MIPI's higher bandwidth C-PHY serial interface, which supports the enhanced camera support. As well as this, new developer and user-facing features include support and APIs for depth maps and using dual cameras to perform refocusing or other visual effects - because Qualcomm is just the SoC manufacturer, it is up to the smartphone OEMs to implement dual-camera/depth-maps as a feature as well.
According to Qualcomm, Snapdragon 820 will start showing up in devices during the first half of 2016. Hopefully between now and then there's more information from Qualcomm about the other aspects of their new SoC, including their Kryo custom CPU core. In Q1 we will be at Mobile World Congress, so we may see more information at that time.
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lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Are those architectural performance and efficiency gains or simply from moving to the 14nm process node.....?eanazag - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I'm tired of the advertising taking over Anandtech.Please let Purch advertising know. I just did with the contact Purch advertising below.
http://purch.com/advertise/#contact-advertising
You can also navigate to this hyperlink with Purch advertising link at the bottom of the website. I'm tired of the ads pushing the Pipeline further down the page everyday, ads taking over my screen (especially on mobile), header ad being larger than the Anandtech header, and etc. I understand that ads pay for the site and I am not against ads. Anand did a great job managing the site in this aspect when he owned it - it lent more credibility to the site. Today there's a notebook review ad for Tom's hardware.
I've been reading since 2007. This is the only site I have a login to comment with. I don't to see this site go to crap. I'm not leaving today, but I can see that be a possibility down the road if this management style continues.
CCrunnernb - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
The ads are getting ridiculous.Drumsticks - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Anandtech was probably the first website I whitelisted from Adblock when I started using it. I try to whitelist any website I get any content on at all really as long as their ads aren't ridiculously obtrusive.Full page ads that can trigger when you accidentally click on white space of an ad that hasn't completely displayed can be really disruptive, though :/
I really wish vendors would take this 40% perf/power gains and stick with QHD at best. We really don't need 4K smartphone displays. The stupid spec wars is absolutely hurting consumers, and I really hope journalists can pressure them to not go for 4K in a *phone*
PixyMisa - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
We certainly don't need 4K screens in phones, but being able to output 4K over MHL / USB-C is a nice feature to have.I'd also be interested to see a 12-13" 4K tablet, particularly if it supported a pressure-sensitive stylus. Given how light 10" tablets are now (the Xperia Z4 tablet is under 400 grams) a 12 or even 13" tablet might only weigh as much as my old retina iPad.
htcfan - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
4k is definitely used in VR. You have to remember with VR the display is split in two. So if you have a 1080p display, then each eye will have a resolution of 960x1080, which is very pixelated. Whereas a 4k display the resolution per eye is 1920x2160 per eye.shadarlo - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
We don't even need 1440p in a smartphone, it pisses me off that I'm stuck wasting 20-40% more battery because of a marketing spec. I want a 5.3" phone with a 1080p screen and a huge battery and good camera.alyarb - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I disabled ABP just to see what you are talking about, and holy cow! I would never tolerate these kind of ads no matter what kind of information was posted here. The respect I have for the site is getting lost among my other good memories of the Y2K era.By not blocking these ads, you supporting the ads, not the writers. Anandtech needs to consider a subscription model or be prepared to lose their readership to a site that can deliver more pertinent information in an easier to navigate format with fewer distractions.
ERJ - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Yeah, on installing Windows 10 the other day I thought I would try out the Edge browser since I had heard some good things about it. Casually browsed to Anandtech and was greeted by some of the most absolutely ridiculous and disruptive ads I have seen. I have been coming to Anandtech since around 2001 but I would certainly not be visiting anymore if it was not for adblock.ddriver - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
What ads? I see no ads. FF + uBlock here...