Qualcomm has announced its latest 7-series SoC, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2, which will be found in handsets in the$400-$600 rangevery soon.

The new chip effectively replaces the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 from last year and brings some serious performance gains in the process.

The CPU now runs at up to 2.8 GHz and Qualcomm says we can expect up to a 50 per cent performance increase this time around.

We’ll also be seeing two times the graphics performance, along with twice theAI processingcapability, all while being 13 per cent more efficient than its predecessor.

Qualcomm isn’t afraid of the competition, either, claiming its new chip is 15 per cent better on CPU tasks than the nearest competitor - and a whopping 25 per cent better with the GPU.

This performance increase only gets more impressive when it comes to sustained workloads, where we’re told to expect a 65 per cent increase inGPU performanceduring long gaming sessions.

The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 benefits from automatic variable-rate shading (VRS), which is a clever way that GPUs can render games more efficiently, resulting in less power draw and less heat generated. This is the first time that we’ve seen this feature on a 7-series chip.

The 7+ Gen 2 also features Adreno frame motion, to enhance framerates in games, and volumetric rendering to enhance particle effects like fog and smoke.

Also new to the 7-series isaptX Lossless audio, which means extremely high-fidelity audio for compatiblewireless headphones. This comes along with improved Bluetooth connection stability and low-latency wireless in-game chat.

When it comes to imaging, we get support for up to200MP camerasand an 18-bit triple ISP that captures 4000x the amount of camera data.

The new chip can also support staggered HDR video capture with triple exposure from two cameras simultaneously, resulting in a massively improved dynamic range.

Of course, the connectivity is top-notch, too. It’s compatible withWi-Fi 6Eat up to 3.6 Gbps along with 5G at up to 4.4 Gbps, all while supporting more networks, frequencies, and bandwidths globally.

Sound pretty promising, right? We think so too, and thankfully it won’t be long before we get to try it out. Qualcomm says devices will be launched imminently from brands such asRedmiandRealme.