About "Dragon"

Good Evening folks !
This article is a tech run-down for you all.
Will keep it brief and as simple as possible, possibly even intuitive.
This article won't be about benchmarks. It is about basic architecture from consumer point of view.

A comparison is the best way to go forward.

Lets take a look at our main guest, The Snapdragon 660

CPU - It has 8x Kryo cores clocked at 4x2.2 GHz Kryo 260 & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 260 using big.LITTLE technology.
What is big.LITTLE?
In simple words - using this "big.LITTLE" the CPU can switch between these two sets of cores in order to maximise performance and battery life. The so called "performance cores" (based on ARM's Cortex -A73) are clocked up to 2.2GHz, while the so called "efficiency cores" (based on ARM’s Cortex-A53) are clocked at 1.8GHz. For example, when playing a game the "bigger" cores will be used to increase performance, whereas while using basic apps (whatsapp,etc) the "smaller" cores will be used to get more battery life.
What is Kryo?
Its basically a modification of ARM's CPU (which companies like qualcomm, mediatek, samsung, huawei and even apple buy.)

So Kryo is a custom CPU made by Qualcomm which is modifiaction of Cortex A73 (the performance cores) and Cortex A53 (the efficiency cores).

Its a 14 nm SoC which makes it power efficient compared to older/previous SD650 built on 28nm technology (lower is better as it’s more power efficient),
Other advantages - The SD660 packs higher clock speeds, faster memory support (RAM speed), and better GPU.

Now briefly comparing it with our :

Second contestant, The Snapdragon 636 - Kryo on Budget
The SD636 comes with Kryo cores compared to the previous gen 630/626/625 which packs Cortex A53 cores.
Its the same Kryo 260 found in SD660 but clocked down to 1.8Ghz.
(Some say that the 8x Kryo260 in SD636 is nothing but a modified 8 core Cortex A53, as seen in the smaller cluster of the SD660.) According to Qualcomm, the SD636 is 40% faster than Snapdragon 630 (which is evident in benchmarks
Also the SD636 comes with slightly bumped up Adreno GPU (over its predecessors).

The big boy - The Snapdragon 845.
Obviously, the flagship SoC will come with everything latest and greatest.
A thorough analysis at XDA where they have pitted it against the last gen flagship, the SD835. Read here.

Comparing our guest with SD660 with everyone's not-so-favorite The MediaTek Helio P60.
MTK P60 is the processor of choice in some similarly priced phones like the Oppo F7.
It has an Octa-core CPU with 4 Arm Cortex-A73 clocked at 2.0 GHz and 4 Arm Cortex-A53 clocked at 2.0GHz. A similar set-up found in SD660.
Its built on 12nm process so theoretically more power efficient.
Comes with Mali-G72(The Adreno 512 in SD660 should easily out-perform this GPU.)
MediaTek doesn't release sources so development is pretty much close to nil.
I would personally avoid this processor based on this aspect.

News - Lastly according to a report here, The SD670 has been re-branded as 710, which is appreciated as the 600-series is a bit confusing from a consumer stand-point.

A final word - There remains little gap in terms of day to day performance (real-life usage) between a flagship processor and a mid-range one. One can get decent enough performance without shelling too much cash. More features are trickling down the flagship series, bridging the difference even more. Lets see what comes next.
Till then. Goodbye.

The End.
Hope you enjoyed reading.
Peace.