My smartphone has a Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) 1.7 GHz dual core processor. I used to think that it would last long in this market, since there is absolutely nothing that this beast can’t deliver. But I was wrong!  At CES 2013, Qualcomm introduced its Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 processors, which it claims to be up to 75% faster compared to its Snapdragon S4 1.5 GHz quad core processor. Moreover, the Snapdragon 800 processor is clocked at 2.3 GHz, which is higher than Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s quad core mobile processors (i5-3317u). It’s even challenging my ultra-book!

Clock, the King?

Some may argue that merely comparing clock speeds are not enough to rank processors, and rightly so, but here’s my point. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) was never able to beat Intel in terms of performance even with higher clock speeds, because most of the benchmarks were optimized for Intel processors, which resulted in its higher scores. The fact that Qualcomm was able to stash in a 2.3GHz crystal in a mobile processor is commendable, and Intel and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) will have a hard time matching up with Snapdragon mobile processors.

As Qualcomm steadily moves towards a monopoly in high performance mobile CPU’s, I believe that developers will begin to optimize their benchmarking apps for the Snapdragon line-up, due its widespread adoption. This would undoubtedly benefit Qualcomm and would make it harder for Intel and NVidia to compete with the market leader.

Beating the Peers

Additionally, the latest Snapdragon processors are based on the new Cortex A-15 developed by ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH), whereas NVidia’s Tegra 3 processors have an older Cortex A-9 architecture. ARM designs and develops microprocessors, and its proprietary architectures are being widely used by many semiconductor manufacturers, but perfected by some. Its new A-15 design gives the Snapdragon up to 40% processing performance advantage, over Cortex A-9 as used by NVidia in its Tegra 3.

But NVidia also released its Tegra 4 processor with Cortex A-15 architecture, which isn’t good for my Qualcomm-focused article. Jokes aside, Tegra 4 is capable of 4k video playback, just like Snapdragon 800, but is clocked at 1.9GHz, which is nearly 17% slower than Snapdragon. Given the fact that both processors use the same architecture, Qualcomm seems to have an edge in processing capabilities. But that’s not all! Snapdragon 800 can not only play 4k content, but is also capable of recording ultra-high definition video and capturing 55 Megapixel images. This gives Qualcomm’s Snapdragon a serious advantage over NVidia’s Tegra 4.