Snapdragon 835/820 Soc is the high-end processor in 2016 and 2017, while Mediatek Helio X30 10nm still doesn’t go in public, and Snapdragon 660/630 series aims at mid-range market, especially Snapdragon 660 processor, has become the main supplier of OPPO, which creates large pressure for Mediatek. Now Qualcomm will upgrade low-end processor, Snapdragon 400 series, using 28nm LP currently, but Snapdragon 450 processor wll use 14nm process, its efficiency will be improved obviously. which will compete with Mediatek in low-end market.
Advanced process is quite important for performance and power consumption, but Qualcomm will produce advanced process in high-end processor, such as Snapdragon 820, Snapdragon 835 using 14nm, 10nm, the mid-range Snapdragon 600 series uses 28nm process, now Snapdragon 400 series including Snapdragon 425, Snapdragon 430, and Snapdragon 435 will use Octa core Cortex-A53+ TSMC 28nm LP process.
But this year low-end processor will make big change, right now Snapdragon 450 processor unveils, its code name is SDM450, although the news about it is less, it will use 14nm process, 600MHz GPU.
Thanks to 14nm process with low power consumption, its Snapdragon 450 processor has 2.02 to 2.2GHz frequency. Its CPU frequency will be higher than current Snapdragon 425 and 435 with 1.4GHz, the CPU performance will have obvious improvement. As for GPU, we are not sure about its model, it may be same as Snapdragon 625 series to use Adreno 506, but the 600MHz frequency will be little lower than 650MHz.
It is said that Snapdragon 450 processor will use MSM8937 code name, therefore, Snapdragon 450 smartphones will be the big impact for other processor smartphones if it uses 14nm, stay tuned.