Adreno 740 GPU In-Depth: Specs and More

Modern flagship Android devices live or die by GPU capability: sustained gaming performance, on-device AI acceleration, AR features, display pipelines, and power efficiency all hinge on the graphics subsystem. This GPU sits at the center of that conversation as Qualcomm’s flagship-class GPU paired most notably with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platforms. It’s widely associated with strong raster performance, improved efficiency compared to the prior generation, and support for modern graphics APIs.

This article breaks down what matters in practice: Adreno 740 specs, how it performs in common Adreno 740 benchmark suites, what people mean when they ask for an Adreno GPU equivalent, and how to think about Adreno 740 TFLOPS without being misled by a single theoretical number. It also includes a clear Adreno 730 vs 740 comparison to help you understand the generation-to-generation jump. Also, you can read our articles about Rockchips SoC and other platforms.

What is Adreno 740?

Qualcomm Adreno 740 is a high-end mobile GPU in Qualcomm’s Adreno family, designed for flagship smartphones and other power-limited devices that still need high frame rates and modern rendering features. It’s most commonly discussed in the context of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2–class devices, where the GPU is expected to deliver:

• High-performance rasterization for games
• Better performance-per-watt than previous generations
• Strong compatibility with modern graphics APIs (important for engines and middleware)
• Support for advanced rendering techniques such as variable rate shading and other efficiency-oriented features (implementation details vary by device and driver)

In simple terms: This GPU is built to push more pixels, more consistently, while staying inside a strict thermal and battery envelope.

Adreno 740 Specs

GPU specs provide a desktop-style spec sheet, including shader counts, caches, memory bus, and more. Mobile GPUs rarely expose all of that publicly in a clean, standardized way. Still, several spec categories matter for engineering and performance expectations:

1) API and feature support

For developers, this is the first gate. If the GPU supports the required API level, you can ship the feature set you want.

Typical API support you’ll see associated with Adreno 740 in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2–class devices includes:

• Vulkan 1.3
• OpenGL ES 3.2
• OpenCL 2.0 FP (useful for sure compute workloads)

2) Driver quality and update cadence

On mobile, driver quality can be as important as hardware. Differences in:

• shader compiler behavior,
• texture/tiler performance characteristics,
• CPU/GPU synchronization overhead,
• and thermal management policies can change results significantly across phones, even with the same GPU.

3) Sustained clocks and thermal limits (the hidden spec)

A phone that scores high for 60 seconds can look amazing in a chart and then collapse after 5–10 minutes of gameplay. Cooling, chassis design, and OEM power limits largely determine whether Adreno 740 feels elite or merely fast at the start.

4) Real-time ray tracing (where applicable)

Some Snapdragon generations advertise hardware-accelerated ray tracing support. In practice, whether you’ll use RT on a phone depends on:

• engine implementation,
• driver maturity,
• power cost,
• and whether the target game can afford the performance hit.

Adreno 740 Benchmark

Benchmarks measure different things, and mobile devices are sensitive to configuration and thermals.

Here’s how to read them:

Common GPU benchmark families

• 3DMark (Wild Life, Wild Life Extreme, Solar Bay)
  Solid for comparing peak vs sustained runs, and for spotting thermal throttling patterns.
• GFXBench (Aztec Ruins, Manhattan, etc.)
  Good for API-focused graphics workloads; watch for offscreen vs onscreen differences.
• Game-based FPS tests (where reproducible)
  Usually the most meaningful, but hardest to standardize.

What causes the same GPU, different score?

Even among Adreno 740 devices:

• display resolution and refresh targets differ,
• RAM speed/config may differ by SKU,
• OEM power profiles differ (performance mode vs balanced),
• thermal design differs (vapor chamber size, graphite layers),
• driver versions differ.

Best practice for comparison: treat a single score as a data point, not a verdict. If you want a reliable view, look for:

1. multiple runs,
2. a stress test loop,
3. and a sustained performance percentage.

Adreno 730 vs 740: what changed?

Adreno 730 vs 740 is a common question because both target flagship tiers but arrive in very different silicon contexts.

High-level differences you can expect

• Performance uplift: Qualcomm’s public messaging commonly frames this generation as a notable step forward versus Adreno 730, with many third-party sources repeating an up to ~25% class improvement claim (often with efficiency improvements depending on workload and device).
• Efficiency: In real devices, Adreno 740 frequently benefits from improved platform efficiency and manufacturing nodes at the SoC level, but sustained performance still depends heavily on cooling and power policy.
• API maturity: Adreno 740-era platforms tend to emphasize stronger Vulkan capability and modern feature support.

A practical summary

If Adreno 730 is flagship baseline, Adreno 740 is typically flagship with more headroom, especially noticeable at higher graphics settings or higher refresh targets – when the phone can sustain the power.

Comparison table: Adreno 740 vs key peers (including Adreno 730)

The table below is intentionally focused on what most engineers and buyers actually compare: generation position, typical platform pairing, API support, and practical performance interpretation. (Exact numbers vary by device, cooling, and driver.)

If your specific goal is which is the Adreno 740 GPU equivalent, skip ahead to the dedicated section, because equivalence depends on workload type and time scale (burst vs sustained).

Adreno 740 TFLOPS: how to interpret it safely

Why TFLOPS can mislead

TFLOPS is a measure of peak floating-point throughput under specific assumptions. It does not directly predict:

• real game FPS,
• texture sampling throughput,
• bandwidth limits,
• tiler efficiency,
• cache behavior,
• driver overhead,
• or sustained thermals.

Two GPUs with similar TFLOPS can perform very differently in games. And one GPU with lower TFLOPS can win in real workloads if it has better memory behavior, better drivers, or runs at higher sustained clocks.

A better way to use TFLOPS

Use Adreno 740 TFLOPS as a rough ceiling, then validate with:

• 3DMark or GFXBench graphics scores,
• sustained stress tests,
• and real-time game performance at your target resolution/refresh rate.

If your use case is compute-heavy (e.g., custom GPU compute kernels), TFLOPS might correlate slightly better—but you still need to account for memory access patterns and mobile power limits.

Adreno 740 GPU equivalent: realistic ways to compare

The honest engineering answer is: equivalent in what, exactly?

Here are the only comparison methods that hold up:

1) Equivalent in peak synthetic graphics

If you compare short-run synthetic graphics tests, Adreno 740 often lands in the same conversation as other flagship mobile GPUs from its era. In some datasets, it can look extremely strong—sometimes even rivaling competing flagship phones in the same benchmark family.

But this is the screenshot performance category: impressive, shareable, and not always what you feel after 10 minutes.

2) Equivalent in sustained gaming

For sustained gaming, equivalence is dominated by:

• phone cooling system,
• OEM performance mode,
• ambient temperature,
• and game engine behavior.

Two Adreno 740 phones can feel like different GPU tiers if one throttles aggressively.

3) Equivalent in engine-specific performance

Some GPUs shine in certain paths:

• Vulkan-heavy engines,
• heavy post-processing,
• or geometry-heavy scenes.

So the best equivalent is often: the GPU that matches your actual game/engine profile in measured FPS and frame pacing.

Developer notes: graphics APIs, tooling, and optimization tips

If you’re targeting Adreno 740 devices (or writing about them for a dev audience), these are practical points that matter more than spec trivia.

Prefer Vulkan for modern Android rendering paths

Where possible, Vulkan can offer better control and performance, particularly when you manage:

• descriptor usage patterns,
• synchronization and frame pacing,
• and pipeline state compilation strategy.

Watch shader compilation and pipeline stutter

Mobile GPUs are sensitive to shader and PSO churn. Typical mitigations:

• pre-warm shaders (where platform allows),
• minimize permutation explosion,
• cache pipelines where possible,
• and keep materials under control.

Thermal-aware performance design

If your app is a game, you should assume:

• the first minute is boost,
• and the next ten minutes are reality.

Design for stable frame pacing:

• dynamic resolution,
• scalable post-processing,
• and sensible FPS caps (60/90/120) depending on device and user settings.

Use vendor guidance

Qualcomm provides Adreno-focused best practices that can help with:

• reducing stalls,
• hiding latency,
• and improving throughput by aligning with compiler behavior and GPU execution patterns.

Conclusion

Adreno 740 is a flagship-class mobile GPU best known for strong top-end performance, modern API support, and improved capability over the previous generation. If you’re comparing Adreno 730 vs 740, the practical story is a meaningful uplift—especially when devices can sustain higher power—along with a generally more modern platform context for Vulkan-forward rendering.

For engineers and informed buyers, the most important takeaways are:

• Adreno 740 specs are only half the story; drivers, OEM tuning, and thermals determine the experience.
• Adreno 740 benchmark numbers vary because phones vary—focus on sustained tests, not only peak runs.
• Adreno 740 TFLOPS can be a useful ceiling, but it’s not a direct FPS predictor.
• The best answer to Adreno 740 GPU equivalent is workload-specific: define the benchmark, time scale, and settings.

If you frame Adreno 740 around sustained performance, API maturity, and real-world engine behavior, you’ll get a far more accurate picture than any single headline metric.

Sources

• Qualcomm – Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform page
• Qualcomm – Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Product Brief (PDF)
• Qualcomm Developer Docs – Adreno GPU on Mobile: Best Practices
• OpenBenchmarking.org – 3DMark Wild Life Extreme public results overview