We all know that the 3D performance of a mobile SoC depends on its integrated GPU cores and frequency. Currently, the mobile GPU market is dominated by ARM’s Mali series and Qualcomm’s Adreno series. Recently, CFan compiled a ranking of Mali GPUs (see “ARM’s Favorite! Mali GPU Performance Ranking“). Today, let’s compare the differences between Adreno GPUs.
Entering the 5G era, all GPUs integrated into Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile platform have been upgraded to the Adreno 6 series. We can judge the performance strength by the size of their model numbers. Currently, the strongest is the Adreno 660 integrated into the Snapdragon 888, while the weakest is the Adreno 618 integrated into the Snapdragon 730G (the “God U” of the 4G era).Comparison of ALU Unit Integration in Qualcomm’s Previous Generation GPUsThe biggest feature of the Adreno 6 series is that it supports complete OpenCL 2.0FP, OpenGL ES3.2, DX12, and Vulkan1.1 graphics interfaces. Its performance is mainly constrained by the process technology, the number of ALUs (Arithmetic Logic Units), and the GPU frequency. Unfortunately, Qualcomm has never disclosed the number of ALUs integrated into the Adreno 6 series, so we can only understand their performance differences through actual benchmark scores.GFXBench is the most authoritative 3D benchmark performance testing software. Since its testing environment consists of real game scenes, it is more accurate in assessing the actual performance of GPUs compared to 3DMark.
From the comparison, it is evident that the Adreno 640/642 marks a watershed. GPUs below this level have very average 3D performance and can only smoothly handle games like Peace Elite. If you want to play Genshin Impact smoothly, you will need support from an Adreno 640 or a higher-level GPU. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 780G (which includes the Adreno 640L integrated into the Snapdragon 778G) is quite eye-catching. Although it is positioned as a mid-range chip, it inherits the Adreno 64x GPU from the flagship Snapdragon 855, helping Qualcomm fend off competition from mid-range chips from Samsung and MediaTek.It is reported that Qualcomm’s next-generation flagship mobile platform SM8450 (internal code name, the final model may be Snapdragon 898 or Snapdragon 895) will upgrade its GPU to Adreno 730, which will be the first Adreno 7 series GPU in the Snapdragon family, and there should be significant improvements in underlying architecture compared to the Adreno 6 series.
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