Benchmarks are dumb. I know this, you know this, a majority of the internet knows this, but sometimes benchmarks reveal some new information that you just have to appreciate. Case in point, someone recently ran the AnTuTu benchmarks on a device that’s allegedly powered by the Qualcomm APQ8084. That random string of letters and numbers might not mean anything to you, so here’s a quick refresher: The Snapdragon 800 goes by the name APQ8974. So what makes the APQ8084 different from the Snapdragon 800 we all know and love?
The Japanese website RBMen says this faster chip will have a new GPU called the Adreno 420. Few details are known, other than support for Direct X 11.1 and a higher clock speed (500 MHz). The Adreno 330 in the Snapdragon 800 supports Direct X, but Qualcomm doesn’t specify which version. It’s also clocked 50 MHz slower. There’s also support for h.265 in the APQ8084, which is the next generation video codec that will power 4K video and provide 1080p video with the same quality as h.264, but at half the size.
When will we know more about the APQ8084? History has shown that Qualcomm likes to announce new chips at either the Consumer Electronics Show in January or Mobile World Congress in February. Then, shortly after the public is made aware of those new chips, handset makers announce phones that use said chips.
Where’s the 64 bit support? It’s not here, but it doesn’t need to be. Android doesn’t support 64 bit, at least not yet, and I doubt 4.4 KitKat will either when it becomes official later this month.
