A new report from Ookla has found that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has the lowest 5G battery drain among flagship SoCs. The chip recorded a battery drain of 31% when connected to 5G in Ookla's SpeedTest, which is 10% less than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
The test was conducted on a variety of flagship smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, the Google Pixel 7 Pro, and the OnePlus 10 Pro. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 was found to have the lowest battery drain in all of the devices tested.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is a significant improvement over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in terms of battery efficiency. The Gen 1 was criticized for its high power consumption, which led to shorter battery life in many smartphones. The Gen 2 addresses this issue by incorporating a number of new power-saving features.
One of the key features of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is its new Adreno 740 GPU. The Adreno 740 GPU is more efficient than the previous generation GPU, and it also supports new features that can help to improve battery life. For example, the Adreno GPU can now be used to decode video content more efficiently, which can save battery life when watching videos.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 also includes a new power management system that helps to optimize battery usage. The power management system can dynamically adjust the clock speed and voltage of the chip depending on the workload, which can help to save battery life.
Leading the Market in Battery Performance
When comparing to rival SoCs, the test compared the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with other leading SoCs, including the Samsung Exynos 2100, the MediaTek Dimensity 1200, and the Google Tensor G2. The test used a simulated network environment with a mix of sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G bands, and measured the battery life of devices running various scenarios such as web browsing, video streaming, gaming, and voice calls.
The results showed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 outperformed the other SoCs in all scenarios, delivering up to 36% longer battery life than the next best competitor. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 also achieved the highest average data throughput and the lowest average power consumption across all scenarios.
Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2's superior battery performance is due to its advanced technologies, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System, which supports global 5G bands and dynamic spectrum sharing; the Qualcomm Kryo 780 CPU, which is based on Arm Cortex-X2 technology and offers up to 20% faster performance than its predecessor; the Qualcomm Adreno 660 GPU, which supports up to 144Hz refresh rate and HDR10+; and the Qualcomm AI Engine, which delivers up to 26 TOPS of AI performance.
The results of the Ookla test are a good sign for the future of battery life in smartphones. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the first flagship SoC to offer significant improvements in battery efficiency, and it is likely that other chipmakers will follow suit in the coming years. This could lead to a significant improvement in battery life in smartphones, which would be a welcome change for many users.
