Qualcomm introducing Kryo CPU with the Snapdragon 820 - 2x performance and power efficiency

Qualcomm likes to tease us with periodic updates on its upcoming processors. This is why they usually don’t have a solid announcement for their chipsets; they just tell us the new SoC is on its way and then give us all the details as we approach the release date. Today we get an idea of how powerful the upcoming Snapdragon 820 processor will be, thanks to new details on the all-new Kryo CPU.

Kryo is the company’s first custom 64-bit quad-core CPU. It will be tightly integrated with the Adreno 530 GPU and Hexagon 680 DSP, which we have recently learnt more about. It’s important to note the Kryo chip is made on the 14 nm FinFET technology and can achieve clock speeds of up to 2.2 GHz.

But what does all this tech talk even mean? Well, this processor is optimized for heterogeneous computing and will be tightly integrated with other parts of the system. Ultimately, this makes for a significant bump in performance and power efficiency. In fact, Qualcomm claims Snapdragon 820 performance will double when compared to the Snapdragon 810, at least in those two specific fields.

Qualcomm then goes on to introduce their new Symphony System Manager. What this does is organize tasks and assign them to either the CPU, GPU or the DSP. It can determine which component should perform any function better and more efficiently. This will help the Snapdragon 820 chipset reach performance levels and power efficiency at much higher levels.

I can’t wait to test a Snapdragon 820 device! It will still be a while before we see one, though. Let’s sit tight and keep waiting for more details to come from Qualcomm!