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Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 805 as MediaTek delivers an octa-core processor

The march of progress continues: Qualcomm and MediaTek both just announced new chips intended for smartphones and tablets. First up is the Snapdragon 805, an update to the popular Snapdragon 800 used in recent flagship phones. Qualcomm’s latest chip includes an Adreno 420 GPU, which the company says is 40% faster than the Areno 330 paired with the Snapdragon 800.

The quad-core CPU now ramps up to 2.5Ghz, and Qualcomm says that the chip is capable of both recording and decoding 4K video content. 4K support isn’t limited to H.264 either. H.265, the successor to H.264, is also fully supported by the Snapdragon 805. That’s impressive given that H.265 content is still rare, but when it does start to see the light of day, future phones will be able to handle it without any issues. Google’s open source H.265 competitor, VP9, is also supported.

MediaTek, meanwhile, has announced what it believes to be the world’s first “true” octo-core processor. The Chinese company’s 28mm MT6592 chip is comprised of eight Cortex A7 cores, ranging from 1.7Ghz up to 2Ghz. Just like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805, the MT6592 handles 4K H.264 video without issues, but can only decode H.265 and VP9 video up to 1080p.

Qualcomm says that its Snapdragon 805 SoC should begin appearing in devices during the first half of 2014. MediaTek’s latest chip, on the other hand, could make it to phones before the end of the year.

Spotted at Android Beat / Engadget

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