There are still some months to go before the end of the life cycle of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It’s not exactly an end, after all, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is here to prove that life still shines beyond “obsolescence”. However, we all know that by November/December this year, Qualcomm will hold its usual Snapdragon Summit event to disclose the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The first rumors about this chipset are popping out already. Per the rumors, we won’t see an evolution to the 3nm manufacturing. Instead, Qualcomm will keep using TSMC’s 4nm node. In fact, the next chip should not bring many changes, but massive ones are coming with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will ditch ARM for Nuvia’s Oryon cores
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is said to repeat the 1 + 4 + 3 configuration. It will likely bring ARM’s next-gen Cortex-X4 and new A7xx and A5xx series cores. We also expect an overclocked plus version to appear as well as Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy. Samsung will keep its partnership with Qualcomm until its new flagship chipset is ready. Things will keep following normally until the end of 2024, when we may see the big reveal of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. As per a new report, the chipset will switch ARM’s cores for a new in-house developed Oryon core design.
Gizchina News of the week
Qualcomm made some moves to begin the development of its own cores in 2021. The company acquired Nuvia, a startup behind the Oryon cores, for about $1.5 billion. At the start, the reports indicated it was a move to counter Apple’s M-series chips. However, there is more than just that. As per the tipster Revegnus, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will bring new cores. The tipster shows specs and benchmark test results comparing both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. If the info is accurate, then we are looking at some sort of insider. The tipster says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will use TSMC’s N3E which is the second-gen 4nm node. These new chips will replace ARM to offer a 40% improvement in multi-core performance.
Can the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 beat the Apple M-series performance?
The tipster says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can score 6,500 on the Geekbench 5 multi-core test. When it comes to the SD8 Gen 4 it scores above the 9,000 mark which means a 40% increase over the M2. You may say that this kind of comparison is pointless. But again, the M2 is a computational processor that leaves nothing to be desired. Just imagine something that exceeds this performance on a smartphone. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could end up inside multiple flagship smartphones.
Last but not least, Revegnus states that the SD 8 Gen 4 will have an octa-core chip that includes two Nuvia Phoenix (Oryon) performance cores and six Nuvia Phoenix M efficiency cores. We don’t know if Qualcomm will retain these names. Even with ARM, the chipmaker tries to be different than others by giving its own names (Kyro Silver, Kyro Gold) to its cores.
