Qualcomm usually does a poor job providing details about their SoC when they put out press releases or even in their website. It’s only thanks to a recent post on Anandtech that I’ve found out there are six different versions of Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 & 801. So two devices powered by Snapdragon 800 SoC may not have the same performance, although the differences are minor, I’d still consider this misleading.
Snapdragon 801, for instance found in the Galaxy S5 (MSM8974AC), is just a revision (v3) from Snapdragon 800, so all 6 versions are MSM8974 processors, and the differences between models are modifications of the frequency for the CPU, GPU, ISP and memory interface, as well as the eMMC version (4.5 vs 5.0) and support for dual SIM (DSDA = Dual SIM Dual Active). All MSM8974 processors come with four Krait 400 CPU cores, an Adreno 330 GPU, dual ISP, a 64-bit wide memory interface and a Cat 4 LTE modem.
The frequency improvements may lead to some performance gains that may not be easy “felt” by the end users, but the most important upgrade maybe eMMC 5.0 which adds some new features and increases the maximum interface speed to 400 MBs, instead of the maximum 200MB/s achievable with eMMC 4.5. Of course the actual performance gain will heavily depend on the eMMC used in a given device.
Note: In case you are not familiar with acronyms or terms used in some of my articles, such as DSDA, you can refer to the technical glossary I’ve posted over the week-end. I plan to add terms I don’t know over time. Suggestions are also welcome.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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So… let me get this straight. According to the technical glossary, both S800 and S801 would come with dual Internet Service Providers, but what’s special about S801 in “AB” and “AC” variants is that they will come with 465Mhz Internet Service Provider (not compatible with 320Mhz one?). Does that mean I can’t use one here, in Europe, where 465 is outside of licensed 70cm UHF band? Also… what are those Internet Service Provides that use 465Mhz to begin with?
@James Nay
OK. I’ve edited the glossary… ISP = Internet Service Provider or Image Signal Processor.