Qualcomm Details the Next-Gen Snapdragons

It's going to be an exciting couple of years for Qualcomm.

Over the last year, 1GHz CPUs in smartphones have become more than normal. If someone had told us in 2007 that we'd soon be scoffing over a smartphone with anything less than 1GHz under the hood, we'd have told him or her that they were crazy. Still, two or three years is a lifetime in the technology industry and here we are, living in a world where we can not only scoff at anything less than 1GHz, but realistically look to the future where chip manufacturers are working hard to bring us clock-speeds higher than 1GHz.

Furthering our tendencies toward smartphone snobbery, Qualcomm this week briefed tech analysts on its roadmap for the next couple of years, and boy, are we excited. First up are two 1.2 GHz dual-core CPUs. AnandTech reports that these two SoCs (codenamed MSM8260 and 8660) will pack two Scorpion cores and an Adreno 205 GPU on a single 45nm die. The 8260 will feature support for HSPA+, while the 8660 also includes HSPA+ support along with CDMA2000 and 1xEV-DO Rev. B.

Exciting as these dual-core chips are, the SoC that has everyone talking is the next generation Snapdragon, the MSM8960. The MSM8960 will boast two next-generation processor cores, which Qualcomm claims will give 5x the performance of the original Snapdragon chip and a 75 percent reduction in power consumption. The company also talked about beefing up the graphics, with numbers like ~4x improvement in graphics performance.

Read more about Qualcomm's plans for Snapdragon on Anandtech.

*Image via AnandTech