Qualcomm on Monday announced a higher tier to their Snapdragon 82x lineup, known as the Snapdragon 821 or MSM8996 Pro. The new chip will start appearing in handsets this quarter. But it could also find its way to tablets, drones, robots and virtual reality headsets.

The Snapdragon 821 is about 10 percent faster than its predecessor, the 820. It is also more power-efficient, meaning batteries in smartphones and phablets will last longer.

The Snapdragon 821 will boast minor graphics improvements, so smartphones with the new chip will be better equipped to handle Google's DayDream mobile VR platform, for example.

The chip can also process 4K video in smartphones to show on external displays.

The Snapdragon 821 will have an integrated modem that can provide download speeds up to 600Mbps, which is the same as its predecessor.

The CPU will operate at speeds of up to 2.4GHz. The chip is based on a homegrown architecture code-named Kryo.