Following last years trend, Qualcomm has upgraded their flagship chipset with a Plus variation of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 offering improved frequencies and all the benefits that brings.

Technically, the trend started in 2018 when Asus launched the original ROG phone which used a speed binned Snapdragon 845, but then Qualcomm made the new faster chipset available to a wider audience with an official SoC. So it comes as no surprise that it will be Asus who will be the first company to launch a phone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ on the ROG Phone 3.

July 22nd is all about Speed and Power.#ROGPhone3 unleashes the latest Snapdragon 865 Plus and delivers mind-blowing performance. Save the date!https://t.co/khFhIcwZW9#GameChanger pic.twitter.com/LeMR19bPoK

— ROG Global (@ASUS_ROG) July 8, 2020

Qualcomm already dominates the market in terms of performance (and market share) with their chipset taking the top 8 spots on phones within the Antutu benchmarks.

MediaTek has been making progress with the Dimensity 1000, and then there is the Exynos 990 and Kirin 990.

So what’s changed with the new SD865+ and how does it compare with other flagships?

What’s the same

I won’t go every aspect of the chipset, because it is identical to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, using the same fabrication process, memory, ISP, and external X55 5G modem.

It is basically just the CPU and GPU that have had their frequencies increased.

CPU

Only the single Kryo 585 Prime core which is based on a Cortex A77 has had a bump in speed taking it from 2.84GHz to 3.1GHz representing a 9.2% increase in the frequency and the first time a mobile chipset has broken the 3Ghz barrier.

The other cores remain identical with 3x Cortex A77 running at 2.42GHz and then 4 small Cortex A55 cores.

Samsung, with their Exynos 990, is technically the second most powerful chipset on the market with the Samsung Galaxy S20 sitting at 9 and 10 in Antutu charts. With this chipset they use a custom Exynos M5 CPU running at 2.73GHz for the first two big cores, then Cortex A76 based cores running at  2.5GHz for the middle 2. Then also 4x Cortex-A55 @ 2Ghz

Finally, the Dimensity 1000 Plus is the latest flagship from MediaTek, it is identical to the Dimensity 1000 Plus before it, except it now supports higher refresh rate screens. This uses 4x Cortex A77 @ 2.6GHz then 4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz.

GPU

Qualcomm does their own thing with the GPU in the form of the Adreno 650. The original Snapdragon 865 was clocked at 587 MHz, and the new Snapdragon 865+ has an undisclosed frequency, but a claimed 10% performance boost.

Samsung then uses the latest Arm Mali Mali G77 with 11 cores running at an undisclosed speed.

The MediaTek used the same Mali G77 but with only 9 cores, again and an unknown frequency.

Power Efficiency / Battery Drain

Qualcomm hasn’t don’t anything to change the power efficiency of the SD865+, so to achieve the higher frequencies there is a power increase, but this is only linear with the increased clock speed, meaning energy efficiency of the new SoC will maintain.

This will technically mean you get the same battery drain, while the CPU may use more energy while in use, it will complete tasks faster. So the near 10% frequency improvement will be 10% increased power usage, but 10% faster processing giving a net 0% battery drain difference (in theory).

Wi-Fi 6E

For me, one of the more interesting aspects is that the SD865+ will be compatible with the new FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi chips by Qualcomm. These are the new Wi-Fi 6E chips that allow you to use the 6GHz band which will improve the performance of Wi-Fi 6 considerably.

However, phone makers have to opt to include this, and there are no routers supporting it, so it probably won’t make any difference in the near future.

Benchmarks – Antutu – 3D Mark

At the moment, we don’t have any official benchmarks. It has been previously revealed that the up and coming Lenovo Legion scored with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus scored 667,253 in Antutu which is a bit more than 10% increase over the current leading phone on Antutu.

The OPPO Find X2 Pro with the SD865 is the first phone to break the 600k mark on the official Antutu chart, while the Galaxy S20 with the Exynos 990 is at number 9 with 516823.

The Dimensity 1000+ on the is claimed to score 530,000 on the iQOO Z1

Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ V Snapdragon 865 vs Dimensity 1000 Plus vs Exynos 990 Comparison Table