Qualcomm hosted the Snapdragon Summit 2023 in Hawaii.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was unveiled by the company, with faster AI processing and gaming performance.
Qualcomm has also added support for 24-bit 96KHz lossless audio.
Qualcomm has officially launched the much-awaited Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. The latest flagship chipset continues its focus on AI with an upgraded NPU. Qualcomm has also buffed the GPU performance with support for 240FPS gaming.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has also narrowed the performance gap from Apple’s A-Silicon counterpart. Qualcomm says that its latest chip is capable of delivering the fastest stable diffusion in the world, making it the most powerful processor for Generative AI tasks.
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Qualcomm Snapdragon Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: More Power To Android
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm architecture. It’s an octa-core processor with a core configuration of 1+3+2+2, in the following manner
1 x Cortex X4, 3.3GHz (Prime Core)
3 x Cortex A720, 3.2GHz (Performance Cores)
2 x Cortex A720, 3.0GHz (Performance Cores)
2 x Cortex A520, 2.3GHz (Efficiency Cores)
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor is 30% faster, and 20% more efficient than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The latest chip now supports LPDDR5x RAM of up to 24GB, with a maximum frequency of 4800MHz
Qualcomm has not revealed the name of the GPU used on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. However, the latest GPU is now 25% faster and offers 40% better performance in Ray Tracing while gaming. Qualcomm also says that its latest chip is capable of delivering console-level gaming performance at 240FPS, on 240Hz screens. It also supports Unreal Engine 5.2.
Qualcomm has now added compatibility for 24-bit 96KHz lossless audio over Bluetooth. Music enthusiasts will surely cherish the audio performance with this chipset, but the end performance could vary by device.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 features the Snapdragon X75 5G modem, for network connectivity. It supports 5G (SA and NSA), mmWave, along with 2×2 MIMO for cellular connectivity. The chipset now also supports satellite connectivity.
The modem on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is capable of download speeds of up to 10Gbps, and upload speeds of up to 3.5Gbps. It has also added support for WiFi 7 and 8×8 MIMO. The chipset comes with Bluetooth 5.4.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 supports 200MP cameras, with support for zero shutter lag. The chipset is now capable of recording 8K HDR videos. It has also carried forward HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision, and HEVC video recording from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can drive displays of 4K resolution at 60Hz. It also supports QHD screens at 144Hz. The chipset also supports external displays of up to 8K resolution at 30Hz and 1080p at 240Hz.
Qualcomm Brings Generative AI and Stable Diffusion on Your Smartphone
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has also taken huge strides in AI performance. Qualcomm has used an upgraded Hexagon NPU, making its latest chip the fastest mobile processor for Generative AI tasks. It is also the first chipset to support multi-modality gen AI models.
The processor supports Meta’s Llama 2 chatbot, which can accept textual and image inputs from the user, and contextually respond to the user. It can also respond to the user using voice output. The Qualcomm Sensing Hub on the chipset uses OpenAI’s Whisper technology for text-to-speech-related tasks.
One of the biggest upgrades with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is Stable Diffusion, which uses Generative AI to generate images locally on your phone. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 from last year took around 15 seconds to generate a single image, whereas the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 takes less than 1 second for the same action.
The chipset also uses Generative AI for image processing. Qualcomm says that Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered devices will be able to zoom out of photos and use AI to fill in the details. The chipset will also bring support for night mode videos, which can be processed locally on the smartphone.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 smartphones are expected to launch soon in the upcoming few weeks. The Xiaomi 14 could be the first device to feature the flagship Qualcomm chipset, as the company has already scheduled the launch event for October 26. Other brands like OnePlus, OPPO, and Vivo are expected to follow a similar timeline.
