There are only a few days left until Snapdragon Summit, but detailed specifications and features for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 have leaked, revealing the improvements compared to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, along with a number of advantages for Android smartphones and tablets. GPU upscaling has also been heavily invested in this time, enabling 8K gaming and adding visual enhancements like global illumination and ray tracing.
Specs:
Taking a look at the CPU and GPU improvements first, MSPowerUser showed off a leaked press slide showing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has a ‘1 + 5 + 2’ CPU cluster and is mass-produced on the 4nm process. According to the slide, the CPU is 30 percent faster and 20 percent more power efficient than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The slide shows that the Adreno 750 GPU is 25 percent more powerful and efficient than the previous generation.
Additionally, Qualcomm has equipped the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with support for Unreal Engine 5 with Lumen, along with Snapdragon Game Super Resolution, which can upscale up to 8K. With Qualcomm’s Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0, 240FPS can also be experienced on a 240Hz display, although the slide does not mention the number of games that can be played at these framerates.
Additionally, Hexagon NPU is 98 percent faster and 40 percent more efficient than its predecessor, and there is on-device AI support with more than 10 billion parameters. Qualcomm’s next-generation 5G modem is integrated into the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, enabling downlink speeds of 10Gbps and uplink speeds of 3.5Gbps. It is also Wi-Fi 7-ready and capable of 5.8Gbps, although readers should be aware that service providers may not necessarily provide these speeds.
It was interesting to note that the USB version was 3.1 Gen 2, which can support up to 10Gbps, just like the USB controller on the A17 Pro. As a result of this upgrade, Android flagship phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can be connected to an external monitor for gaming purposes, just like the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
