Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Benchmarks: Qualcomm's New Midrange Mobile Chip Tested

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7-series mobile platforms have traditionally offered solid performance and premium features at more mainstream price points than the company's flagship 8-series platforms. With its latest Snapdragon 7-series release, however, Qualcomm is cranking things up a notch. The new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, recently announced at MWC 2023, will offer significant CPU, GPU, AI, imaging and efficiency upgrades, which should enhance the performance and feature set of forthcoming, mainstream Android devices.

Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Specifications And Key Features

Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 is designed to be a relatively high performer. The Kryo CPU in the SoC offers a clock speed of up to 2.91GHz, and Qualcomm claims it’ll deliver a 50% performance boost over the previous-generation Snapdragon 7. The new mobile platform has one prime Arm Cortex X2 core clocked at up to 2.91GHz, three Arm Cortex A710s performance cores clocked at up to 2.49GHz, and four Arm Cortex A510s efficiency cores at up to 1.8GHz. All of that is packaged in a chip that should be able to handle modern smartphone workloads fast and efficiently -- though, of course, not quite as fast as the higher-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which takes advantage of a more powerful Cortex X3 prime core, for example.


The GPU in the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 has been significantly updated as well. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 offers an Adreno GPU that Qualcomm says will deliver 2x the graphics performance of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1.

In addition to CPU and GPU performance upgrades, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 also offers select Snapdragon Elite Gaming features like Auto Variable Rate Shading, or VRS, which renders foreground and background objects at different shader detail levels in an effort to boost performance and efficiency. That’s on top of support for Snapdragon Sound and aptX for high resolution, and lag-free, audio.
Other features on offer by the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 include an 18-bit triple camera ISP that’s able to capture 30 images and merge them for better low-light shots, and supports a maximum resolution of 200 megapixels. It also has a new Qualcomm AI Engine that offers twice the performance of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1. Rounding out the package is the Snapdragon X62 modem for theoretical download speeds of up to 4.4Gbps.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Benchmarks

While the chip was just recently announced, Qualcomm gave us an opportunity to benchmark the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 at MWC 2023. This reference device offered a 6.65-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, 12GB of RAM, and was powered by a 4,192mAh battery.

GeekBench 5 Results

GeekBench is built to simulate real world processing workloads, through things like image processing, compression/decompression, etc. As you can see, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 reference device finished somewhat in the middle of the pack compared to other modern smartphones we’ve tested. We would have expected devices equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Gen 2 to beat the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, of course. Perhaps the only exception is the iPhone 11, which still beat the Snapdragon device in the single-core test, though faired much worse in the multi-core test.

AnTuTu And AITuTu Benchmarks

AnTuTu is like GeekBench in that it returns rather nebulous scores rather than a concrete frame rates or other metrics, but the benchmark still makes it relatively easy to compare overall relative performance among devices.
AnTuTu offered a similar look at performance to GeekBench 5. Generally, the device performed well against most modern devices, even beating some Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-equipped phones. It coulnd not, however, catch the higher-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 reference device, which topped the chart. This remained true for most of AnTuTu’s scores, though the GPU performance would have put the device lower in the rankings compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones.
AITuTu is designed test AI inferencing performance, which is an area where Qualcomm has had a heavy focus over the past few years. As you can see, AITuTu scores are much more uniform than AnTuTu. Essentially, all Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones clistered are at the top, with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones under that, followed by the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. This shows that the new chip is a solid performer in the AI department, but not quite as impressive as the top-tier phones out there right now.

Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Gaming And Graphics Benchmarks

Next up we have some gaming and graphics realted benchmarks from a handful of popular testing tools. While CPU performance has an affect on some of these tests, they are more focused on the GPU...

The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 finishes about in the middle of the pack in the T-Rex and Manhattan tests, which puts it behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 and Gen2-based devices, but well ahead of the previous-gen mainstream devices and devices like the Google Pixel 7.


The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 finished towards the bottom of the stack, but that's only because we don't have many mainstream devices represented. As we saw in previous tests, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 trails the higher-end Snapdragon 8-based devices, but it is able to outperform devices like the Google Pixel 6.

Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Performance Conclusions

Virtually every aspect of the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 has been upgraded over the previous-generation, which not only results in increased CPU, GPU, AI and overall platform performance, but enhanced features as well. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2's modem and WiFi capabilities have been upgraded, as has its 18-bit camera ISP, which is essentially on-par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 now. The powerful Snapdraton Sight 18-bit ISP allows the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 to capture and process 3.0GPixels/s, which enables an array of computational photography features that  will ultimately enhance image quality, especially in challenging lighting situations.

We'll have to wait and see how many devices end up launching with Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 on board, but Qualcomm announced that phones from Redmi and Realme are already on the way and will launch by the end of March. We expect others to follow as well, at price points below today's flagships.