Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 back in November 2022. And recently, Qualcomm revealed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will be announced on October 24 at Snapdragon Summit. So, the new SoC is still months away from now. But we have had multiple reports about the development of the chipset. And most of them came from credible sources.
One of the main highlights from those is that Qualcomm is testing two different versions of the chipset. Among these, the one that is exceptionally efficient will end up in commercial devices. But the real question is, how much of a performance upgrade will the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 offer? Well, we’ve gathered interesting information on the subject.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Could Be a True Successor to 8 Gen 2
Qualcomm did not get the chance to take advantage of the cutting-edge 3nm process of TSMC. Instead, the chipset giant is utilizing the N4P process to mass produce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. At the core, the N4P process offers an 11% performance boost over the N5 process and a 6% boost over the regular N4 process (source).
Well, the same exact process has reportedly allowed the 8 Gen 3 to see a major boost in performance. To be exact, the chipset is said to have seen up to a 30% performance boost over the predecessor (source). And a 30% performance difference from a last-gen SoC is a big deal.
That hints that the 3nm process might not have been necessary for 8 Gen 3. And with such a performance jump, the smartphones featuring this chipset will be a powerhouse. There will be reasonable changes in the smoothness and processing quickness while handling resource-intensive tasks.
Analysis of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s Reported Performance
GPU Performance
So, according to the new report, most of the upgrades will be noticeable on the GPU side, the Adreno 750. Based on OpenGL performance, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will reportedly see a 30% improvement. That means the next-gen chipset could handle demanding games smoothly.
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In comparison, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 gets 60 FPS in the OpenGL test of the GFXBench. So, the new chipset could offer around 78 FPS in the same test at 1440p.
Multi-core Performance
Moving on, the report shares that the multi-core performance of the 8 Gen 3 increased by 20%. To compare, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 gets 5137 in Geekbench 5 test. That means the new chipset could score around 6164 in the same test. And that score would mean enhanced computing performance.
Single-core Performance
According to the latest report, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 sees a 13% performance upgrade in the single-core test. Again, to look back, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 scores 1867 in Geekbench 5 single-core benchmark. This hints that the upcoming chipset will score around 2109, which is not a massive difference, but it’s still an upgrade.
That said, the relatively low-performance gain on the single-core test means that Qualcomm might not focus on the Cortex X4 core. Instead, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 may indeed see better performance for having more Cortex A720 cores.
Rumored Specs of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
As mentioned earlier, there are currently two different 8 Gen 3 versions. Details about one have come out recently (source). According to it, the chipset will feature a ‘1+5+2’ configuration with 1x Cortex X4 core, 5x Cortex A720, and 2x Cortex A520.
The clock speed of the Cortex X4 core is 3.2 GHz, the A720 cores are 3.0 GHz, and the Cortex A520 cores are at 2.0 GHz. Note that Qualcomm is yet to officially announce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. So, take every piece of info about it with a grain of salt.