Qualcomms gaming focused Snapdragon 865 is here: Asus ROG Phone III and Lenovo Legion to have first dibs

Like last year’s refresh of the Snapdragon 855 mid-way into 2019, the Snapdragon 865 Plus carries over most of the features and components of the Snapdragon 865, but offer three key improvements —

1. The Kryo 585 prime core can now go up to 3.1GHz, which is 10 percent higher than the Snapdragon 865 which could go up to 2.86GHz.
2. The Adreno 650 GPU offers 10 percent faster graphics rendering.
3. Comapatibility with Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 connectivity suite which can theoretically push Wi-Fi speeds up to 3.6Gbps.

Like before, the Snapdragon 865 Plus SoC will first debut on the ASUS ROG Phone III and the Lenovo Legion 5G gaming smartphone, due to launch later this year. The higher clock speeds of the CPU and GPU will certainly help the OEMs market their gaming phones better, but it’s also likely that regular flagships will also carry the chipset inside. That includes the follow-up to the OnePlus 8 series expected in Q3 2020.

Interestingly, this is also the first confirmation of the Lenovo Legion gaming phone that has been rumoured for long.

“Three years after the launch of the Lenovo Legion PC portfolio, we’re bringing our beloved gaming sub-brand’s core values of speed and powerful performance to 5G mobile gaming – where Lenovo Legion will be amongst the first to offer the new Snapdragon 865 Plus in our expanding family of gaming devices this year. Lenovo has a long history of co-engineering amazing consumer experiences with Qualcomm Technologies and we can’t wait to share more soon,” Jerry Tsao, vice president of Lenovo’s Mobile Gaming Group Emerging Markets said in a statement.

However, the Snapdragon 865 Plus doesn’t bring the most anticipated changes. Like its predecessor, the SoC continues to mandatorily combine the Snapdragon X55 5G modem discretely, which will lead to more space inside the chassis, and perhaps higher power consumption.

Having said that, the Snapdragon 865 Plus has shaped up to be a gaming powerhouse. It supports all of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite Gaming features including HDR gameplay, jank reducer, support for high-refresh rates and more. Qualcomm claims ‘desktop quality gaming’ on the Snapdragon 865 Plus, just like it did with the predecessor.

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