Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 announced for Samsung headphones and more

Qualcomm has just announced the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset.

The XR2+ Gen 2 is an advanced version of the XR2 Gen 2 chip used in Meta Quest 3, with the GPU 15% higher and the CPU 20% higher.

The new chip also supports higher resolution display output: up to 4.3K per eye at 90Hz or 3.7K per eye at 120Hz. This compares to up to 3.1K per eye at 90Hz or 2.7K per eye at 120Hz for the base XR2 Gen 2.

Finally, the chip includes support for up to 12 simultaneous cameras, up from 10 in the base XR2 Gen 2, to enable headphones with a large number of face and eye tracking sensors.

Qualcomm's somewhat confusing official XR chipset lineup chart.

To be clear, the XR2+ Gen 2 is not a successor to the XR2 Gen 2 that debuted just three months ago. It's a more premium option for pricier headphones, including those designed to be compatible with the Apple Vision Pro.

It inherits all the benefits of the XR2 Gen 2 infrastructure, including hardware acceleration for camera passthrough which is said to reduce end-to-end latency to about 12 milliseconds.

But this legacy architecture also means that even though the GPU and CPU have a higher maximum clock speed, their performance per watt is identical. Headphones that use the XR2+ Gen 2 will need to include larger batteries to achieve the same battery life, assuming they actually want to benefit from the extra performance.

Snapdragon chip	year	practical	Used in
835	2018 (for virtual reality)	14 nm	Lenovo Mirage Solo Pico G2 Live focus Oculus Quest
XR2 (Gen 1)	2020	7 nm	Quest 2 Pico Neo 3 Live focus 3 Pico 4 Vive XR Elite Lynx R1
XR2+ (1st generation)	2022	7 nm	Quest Pro
XR2 second generation	2023	4 nm	Task 3
XR2+ 2nd generation	2024	4 nm	Samsung headset HTC headset Sunken eyebrow

We and others have speculated that Qualcomm might announce a new XR3 chipset line with the new custom Orion CPU cores seen in the recently announced Snapdragon It is the case. The issue here.

Qualcomm XR Vice President and General Manager Hugo Swart told UploadVR that the company doesn't currently see a market need for the XR3 line anytime soon, but didn't rule out that one day happening. Swart also noted that the Vision Pro requires an external battery, while the XR2+ Gen 2 is designed for fully wireless headphones. For now, a 20% higher clock speed is all the XR2+ Gen 2 promises for the CPU.

CPU performance improvements have been more marginal since moving to the original XR2.

On the other hand, the XR2 Gen 2 series GPU delivers amazing performance for a mobile chip, more than double the peak performance of the original XR2 GPU. Some Quest 3 developers are already using it to deliver “console quality” graphics, and with a 15% higher clock speed on the XR2+ Gen 2, XR2+ Gen 2 developers should be able to achieve even more.

On the other hand, GPU performance has taken a huge leap with the Gen 2 architecture.

Qualcomm has indicated that the .

We'll be keeping a close eye on Samsung and HTC for any announcements in the coming days, weeks and months, and we'll bring you details on this company that also hasn't been revealed once we find out what it is.