Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 vs Intel Core i5-6440HQ

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 Compute Platform (or SD7c Gen2) is a ARM based SoC for Windows laptops. It integrates two fast Kryo 495 Gold cores (based on the ARM Cortex-A76 architecture) at up to 2.55 GHz and six small Kryo 495 Silver cores (ARM Cortex-A55) for power efficiency. Compared to the previous generation, the clock speeds were slightly increased.

According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 can offer up to 60% better productivity performance per watt in Windows 10 compared to Gemini Lake Refresh chips such as the Intel Celeron N4020 and, to a good extent, the Pentium Silver N5030.

The integrated X15 LTE modem supports Cat.12 download (600 MBit/s) and Cat.13 upload speeds (150 MBit/s). Furthermore, Wifi-5 and Bluetooth 5.0 are integrated in the SoC. In addition to the Adreno 618 graphic card, the SoC also integrates a Hexagon 692 NPU.

The chip is produced in 8nm (compared to the more modern 7LPP process of the 8cx) and intended for the use in thin and light laptops without a fan.

Intel Core i5-6440HQ

The Intel Core i5-6440HQ is a quad-core processor based on the Skylake architecture, that has been launched in September 2015. In addition to four CPU cores (no Hyper-Threading support) clocked at 2.6 - 3.5 GHz (4 cores: max. 3.1 GHz, 2 cores: max. 3.3 GHz), the chip also integrates an HD Graphics 530 GPU and a dual-channel DDR4-2133/DDR3L-1600 memory controller. The CPU is manufactured using a 14 nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Skylake replaces both Haswell and Broadwell and brings the same microarchitecture in every TDP class from 4.5 to 45 W. The extensive improvements of the Skylake design include increased out-of-order buffers, optimized prefetching and branch prediction as well as additional performance gains through Hyper-Threading (if supported). Overall, however, performance per clock has been increased by only 5 to 10 percent (compared to Haswell) respectively under 5 percent (compard to Broadwell), which is quite modest for a new architecture ("Tock").

Performance

With up to 4 threads under load, the Core i5-6440HQ performs roughly on par with the Core i7-6700HQ or Core i7-4720HQ (Haswell). However, the Core i7 benefit from Hyper-Threading (up to 25 - 30 percent performance boost) in extensively parallelized software, whereas the Core i5 don't support this feature.

Nevertheless, even the most demanding applications and excessive multitasking are handled easily.

Graphics

The integrated graphics unit called HD Graphics 530 represents the "GT2" version of the Skylake GPU (Intel Gen. 9). The 24 Execution Units, also called EUs, are clocked at 350 - 950 MHz and offer a performance about 20 percent above the old HD Graphics 4600. Games of 2015 can thus be played smoothly in low or medium settings. For more information about performance and features, check our page for the HD Graphics 530.

Power Consumption

Specified at a TDP of 45 W (including CPU, GPU and memory controller), the CPU is best suited for bigger notebooks 15-inches in size and above. Optionally, the TDP can be lowered to 35 watts (cTDP down), reducing both heat dissipation and performance.