The world of technology is constantly evolving, with new products and innovations continuing to push the limits of what is possible. One of the protagonists of this revolution is Qualcomm, a company known for its powerful Snapdragon processors. Their latest product, the Snapdragon 8 Gen2, is attracting a lot of attention, but not just for its performance. The price of this chip turns out to be significantly higher than Apple's flagship chip.
Go for performance, but Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 costs too much more than Apple Bionic A16: justified increase?
According to the tech expert lastd80, Qualcomm is putting a significant margin on its flagship processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Data suggests that manufacturers have to pay the American company $160 for each chip. Taking the Nubia Red Magic 8 Pro gaming smartphone as an example, the global version of which costs $649 (even less in China), it turns out that the processor alone represents a quarter of its retail price.
Read also: Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has a presentation date
What makes this discovery even more surprising is the comparison with the cost of Apple A16 Bionic chip. Despite the fact that this chip has doubled the price of its predecessor, it still costs only dollars 110 per unit. This means that Apple's chip is more than 8% cheaper than the Snapdragon 2 Gen 30, despite tests showing that Apple's chip is significantly faster. These prices may seem surprising, but it is important to remember that the cost of a chip is not the only factor that determines the price of a smartphone. Other components, such as memory, display and battery, as well as design, features and branding all play a role in determining the final price of a device.
Despite its high price, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 offers impressive performance. This chip uses the updated ARMv9 architecture with TSMC's 4nm foundry and features four performance cores instead of the typical three. This translates into 35% faster CPU speed than the previous year's model, the 8th Gen 1. It also features an Adreno GPU capable of ray-tracing supported by the hardware, improving the rendering of shadows, reflections and light sources. The chip also has an improved Hexagon processor and Cognitive ISP to improve AI performance and image processing.
