Introducing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Introducing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Android phones get a significant AI boost in 2024

A majority of 2024’s top Android phones will be powered by Qualcomm’s most recent chipset. This is important to know.

The majority of high-end Android phones on the market are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 series of chipsets. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is the company’s most recent flagship chipset, and it has finally been revealed.

There are a ton of new features and upgrades here, including the updated CPU, adjusted GPU, improved AI, and new camera techniques

CPU of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Every gigahertz

When Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, about a year ago, it deviated from its typical 1+3+4 CPU core configuration. This processor has a 1+4+3 configuration, dropping one of the four small cores to provide four medium cores instead. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is currently losing one more little core.

Indeed, the new Snapdragon chipset has a 1+5+2 CPU configuration, with five Cortex-A720 medium cores, one Cortex-X4 large core, and only two Cortex-A520 Refresh small cores.

Although the “Refresh” name is new for the little cores, Qualcomm senior director Karl Whealton hinted during a press event that this was because of small variations:

Another intriguing decision was made by Qualcomm, which informed us that it will now exclusively support 64-bit cores and will no longer support 32-bit programs.

It’s a 64-bit only core this year. And we think that the app ecosystem has developed so much that, right now, we don’t really see a need for 32-bit cores (sic),” senior vice president Ziad Asghar of Qualcomm stated in answer to a query from Android Authority.

With the main core running at 3.3GHz, three of the medium cores at 3.2GHz, the other two medium cores at 3GHz, and the two tiny cores at 2.3GHz, Qualcomm is also providing some high clock rates here. Additionally, the chip now has 12MB of L3 cache, up from 8MB the previous time.

Given the extra medium core, greater L3 cache, and significantly faster clock speeds, one would think that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 represents a significant improvement in performance. In fact, Qualcomm claims that performance will be 30% faster than with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

We were curious about how this would affect gains in efficiency. on response, Qualcomm stated that the new CPU is 20% more efficient than the CPU on the previous chipset.