Qualcomm rubbishes Snapdragon 810 overheating concerns

The Snapdragon 810 chipset is expected to power a flurry of upcoming flagship phones, but has been marred by a number of damning reports about overheating in recent weeks.

Now, however, Qualcomm has spoken out on the recent spate of Snapdragon 810 rumours, stating its latest System on Chip (SoC) offering hasn’t suffered from production delays or overheating issues.

“The exterior temperature of an 810 device is actually lower than it is for an 800 device – and the 800 was a flagship that everybody shipped,” Tim McDonough, Qualcomm’s Vice President of Marketing said speaking with TrustedReviews.

He added: “Part of the reason we wanted to show you the thermal data is that we are not going to spend a lot of our time chasing rumours.”

“Usually rumours are wrong and you never get to the truth, so it is nice for use to be able to start with the truth.”

Not only is Qualcomm happy that the 810 does not suffer from any undue overheating woes, but McDonough has gone as far as to suggest the chip could set new standards in performance on this front.

“If the 800 was the gold standard, we’re beating the gold standard and we feel good about that,” he told us.

Related: Snapdragon 805 vs Snapdragon 801 vs Snapdragon 800

Backing up McDonough’s claims with hard data, Tim Leland, Qualcomm’s Vice President of Product Management has shown how the Snapdragon 810 maintains lower core temperatures for longer periods than its predecessor – even when performing heavy-duty tasks.

“When we talk about skin temperature we are really talking about the back end of the phone. When you’re holding it, this is the area which comes into contact with you,” he explained

“Using some of the basic concepts, the usual temperature we see is room temperature, around 25°C.

“The heaviest use cases we see tend to fall into two categories – this is irrespective of what processor is used or which form factor – and by their very nature they require a lot of energy and processing.”

Detailing these heavy user cases, he added: “Those who play really high-end games or shoot 4K video, the skin temperature range can get into that range of 35°C to 45°C.

“That really defines the target of where we need to reside.”

According to Leland, Qualcomm has managed to get the 810 chip to perform comfortably within these heat ranges for longer periods of time.

“If you look at the Snapdragon 800 – a very successful processor for Qualcomm – if you look at the target zones while playing Asphalt 8 at 30 frames per second, you can see after 15 to 20 minutes you start getting to the high end of that range of target zone for thermal design.

“However, with the Snapdragon 810, using lessons learned from the 800, we have been able to extend the timeframe before you’re in that upper thermal zone while still enjoying 30 fps.

“With the 810 you can go for more than half an hour. That’s quite a lot of time for something that is generally considered a short-burst gaming experience.

Despite brushing some claims aside, McDonough was unable to end speculation that the 810 chip heading for future devices will differ slightly from that found in the LG G Flex 2 that was unveiled at CES 2015.

“I can’t tell you [if the G Flex 2 will feature the exact same 810 chip as forthcoming phones], that will be someone else’s job to tell you about,” he said.

“We sell a lot of different chips to a lot of different OEMs, but we always let them announce the handsets and what the specs are.”