The Snapdragon 616 isn’t exactly an old processor, having been announced at the end of July, but today Qualcomm took the wraps off of an updated chipset.
Qualcomm has made the Snapdragon 617 and Snapdragon 430 official. The 617 boasts an octa-core configuration of Cortex-A53 CPUs up to 1.5GHz as well as an Adreno 405 GPU. Also included is an X8 LTE modem that supports Cat 7 LTE speeds of up to 300Mbps and 2x20MHz carrier aggregation, as well as support for photos up to a resolution of 21 megapixels.
Next up, we’ve got the Snapdragon 430. The 430’s got its own octa-core configuration of Cortex-A53 CPUs up to 1.2GHz paired with an Adreno 505 GPU. The Snapdragon 430’s X6 LTE modem offers Cat 4 download speeds of up to 150Mbps with 2x10 carrier aggregation as well as support for photos up to a resolution of 21 megapixels and 1080p displays.
Finally, both the Snapdragon 617 and Snapdragon 430 support Quick Charge 3.0, the new version of Qualcomm’s fast charge technology. Qualcomm says that Quick Charge 3.0 can charge up to 4 times faster than regular USB charging and 2 times as fast as Quick Charge 1.0, while also being 38 percent more efficient than Quick Charge 2.0. Quick Charge 3.0 can be used with USB Type-A, USB micro, USB Type-C, or proprietary connectors.
The Snapdragon 617 is expected to begin appearing in devices by the end of 2015, with the Snapdragon 430 to follow in the second half of 2016.