Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon chip is here with brand new Kryo cores that are faster than ever before, and even more efficient. The Snapdragon 820 also boasts Qualcomm’s new Adreno 530 GPU, which delivers 40 percent faster graphics than last year’s Adreno 430.

Qualcomm last flagship, the Snapdragon 810, hasn’t exactly lived up to the expectations set by its predecessors. Thanks to persistent heat problems, the chip was dropped altogether by Samsung, while companies like LG have chosen to use the slower Snapdragon 808 in instead.

With the much-improved Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm is hoping to fix that that mess.

Thanks to a cutting-edge 14-nanometer manufacturing process and new Kyro CPU cores, the 64-bit Snapdragon 820 is up to twice as fast as the Snapdragon 810, and twice as efficient. That means it’ll be better on battery life, and it should run a whole lot cooler.

Qualcomm is also introducing a new technology called Symphony System Manager, which is designed to alter the configurations of the chipset to better suit the task at hand, whether that’s playing a game, taking a picture, or switching between apps.

Qualcomm hasn’t told us who is manufacturing its Snapdragon 820, but given that it uses that cutting-edge 14-nanometer processor, Samsung seems the most likely partner, as previous reports have suggested.

Does that mean Samsung will switch back to Qualcomm chips for its next-generation Galaxy S and Galaxy Note smartphones? We’ll have to wait and see.

• SourceQualcomm