Budget phones just got a boost in gaming and emulation

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 series of processors powers a variety of budget Android phones, from Motorola and Xiaomi to Samsung and HONOR. Now, the company has revealed the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4, which brings some notable improvements.

For starters, Qualcomm says this is the first Snapdragon 6 series chip built on a 4nm manufacturing process (Samsung). This is a notable deal, as a smaller manufacturing process typically results in a more efficient chipset and improved performance. However, there is no information on specific efficiency gains compared to the 6nm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3.

The Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 uses the same Cortex-A78 and A55 CPU cores as its predecessor, albeit with a maximum clock speed increase of 100MHz. However, look a little closer and you’ll see that the CPU design has undergone a significant change. The new chip now has a 4+4 layout (four large cores and four small cores) compared to the 2+6 layout of the previous silicon. Add in the smaller manufacturing process and it’s no wonder Qualcomm says CPU performance has improved by 36%. This is good news for more demanding tasks that require multi-core power, such as video encoding and media editing. This is particularly good news for emulation, as some emulators (e.g. NetherSX2 for PS2) require multiple large CPU cores for demanding games.

The chip designer also says you can expect a 59% better GPU, as well as variable rate shading, Qualcomm Game Quick Touch to reduce touch latency, and support for a 144Hz refresh rate (up from 120Hz). All of this is a pretty substantial improvement if you want to game on your next budget phone.

Qualcomm has also paid attention to camera capabilities, with the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 supporting 200MP snapshots (up from 108MP) and 240fps slow-motion capture at 720p (up from 120fps/720p). Strange as it may seem, the older chip spec sheet lists support for storage-saving HEVC video capture, while the product page for the new chip omits this mention. We asked Qualcomm about this apparent omission, but the company noted that it does indeed support HEVC capture.

Other notable updates include Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi 6E, a 5G modem with 2.9 Gbps downlink speeds, and support for LPDDR5 RAM. In contrast, the older chip offered Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 5, 2.5Gbps cellular downlink speeds, and support for the older LPDDR4X RAM standard.

There is no information on the launch timeline for the first phones with Snapdragon 6s Gen 4, nor on possible device partners. However, history suggests that brands like Motorola, Xiaomi and HONOR could be working on phones with this processor.