Since 2023, Qualcomm has been making Snapdragon chips aimed toward handheld gaming consoles. These are separate from the smartphone/pill chips and are bought below the Snapdragon G model. In the present day, the corporate refreshes the whole lineup with main enhancements.
The Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 is the primary G-series chip to help Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen. Lumen is a dynamic international illumination and reflections system. You will discover extra particulars right here and in this video. Moreover, there may be {hardware} acceleration for ray tracing, which isn’t out there on the G2 and G1.
On high of the brand new options, the Gen 3 chip additionally brings efficiency upgrades. The 8-core CPU (1x prime, 5x efficiency and 2x effectivity) is 30% sooner than the G3 Gen 2 CPU. The brand new Adreno A32 GPU is 28% sooner.
The Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 is an enormous improve over its predecessor with 2.3x enhance in CPU efficiency and a whopping 3.8x enhance in GPU capabilities. The CPU has a special mixture of cores (1+4+3 as an alternative of 1+5+2), however Qualcomm doesn’t provide particulars about what cores are used (Kryo or Oryon?).
The Adreno A22 GPU helps Snapdragon Recreation Tremendous Decision (upscaling) and Adreno Body Movement Engine 2.0 (body gen), that are additionally out there on the A32, however there’s no ray tracing {hardware} right here. Each the G3 and G2 can drive QHD+ shows at as much as 144Hz.
On the connectivity aspect, the brand new G3 and G2 chips function Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, plus optionally available 5G (sub-6GHz and mmWave) help.
The Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 is the inexpensive choice and is essentially supposed for cloud gaming. It helps 1080p+ shows at as much as 120Hz together with Wi-Fi 5 (ac) and Bluetooth 5.1. There’s a 5G choice out there too.
The brand new CPU (2+6) lacks a chief core, however it’s nonetheless 80% sooner than its predecessor. The Adreno A12 delivers a extra modest 25% enchancment in efficiency. The main target right here was on effectivity quite than efficiency.
“Beginning this quarter,” there might be handheld gaming units from the likes of AYANEO, ONEXSUGAR, Retroid Pocket and others that includes the brand new Snapdragon G chips. We’re unsure why Qualcomm wasn’t extra particular with the dates, there are solely a few weeks left in Q1.
