Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 Packs On-Device AI And A Gaming Boost For Midrange Phones

Render of a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC on a red background.
As much as we’re enamored by the high-end silicon (like the Snapdragon 8 Elite) that drives flagship smartphones, we’re equally impressed by the gains we’ve seen in the more affordable mid-range segment over the past several years. To that end, Qualcomm today announced the arrival of its Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 mobile platform with some key upgrades, including the first in-series AI Gen support. It’s also the first in the Snapdragon 6 series to feature INT4 support to speed up AI workloads.

There’s been a notable shift in processor development towards on-device AI capabilities, both on the desktop PC side and in mobile, which not only includes laptops and 2-in-1 devices, but also smartphones. And it’s not just for flagship products, as the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 highlights.

In addition to an onboard hexagon neural processing unit (NPU), Qualcomm’s latest midrange chip packs a 1-3-4 CPU core configuration consisting of a single primary Cortex-A720 cores clocked at up to 2.3GHz, three additional big Cortex-A720 cores clocked at up to 2.2GHz, and four small Cortex-A520 cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz. The previous generation Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 skipped a prime core and paired four Cortex-A78 cores (2.4GHz) with four Cortex-A55 cores (1.8GHz).
Qualcomm graph showing CPU, GPU, and power savings.
Source: Qualcomm

It also features an unspecified Adreno GPU. The result, according to Qualcomm, is an 11% uplift in CPU performance and a more sizable 29% gain in GPU performance for a big boost in gaming (and graphics in general). Meanwhile, Qualcomm says its newest silicon delivers an overall 12% power savings over the previous generation chip.

A phone playing a game on a bus.
“Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 will drive the next leap forward for smartphones in the mid-tier thanks to significant advancements in AI, gaming and photography,” said Deepu John, senior director, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “This platform brings a new level of performance and power efficiency for users to enjoy virtually anywhere with ultra-fast 5G and Wi-Fi, enhancing their everyday activities whether playing, creating, or working.”
Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 infographic.

Qualcomm also bumped up the memory support from 12GB to 16GB of LPDDR5-3200 or LPDDR4X-2133. Other notable changes include display support for up to FHD+ at 144Hz (up from 120Hz), an upgrade to Bluetooth 5.4 (up from Bluetooth 5.2), both HLG and HDR10/HDR10+ support (versus just HLG previously), and support for zero shutter lag at up to 64MP (versus 48MP previously).

Otherwise, the latest chipset retains support for the same 5G standards (sub-6GHz and mmWave) and Wi-Fi 6E at speeds of up to 2.9Gbps.

Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 will show up smartphones from leading OEMs (including realme, OPPO, and Honor) within the next few months.

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