Qualcomm is one of the most important chipset makers in the Android world. It generally consistently makes the best chips for Android smartphones and manages to get teh most power out of them, especially when it comes to GPUs. Last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 was one of the best that we've ever tested, trumping the already-amazing Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is now here, and it comes with a major, major focus on AI.
With this SoC, Qualcomm has improved nearly every part of this SoC. It has a new Adreno GPU (of which Qualcomm still refuses to give a proper model number), a massively improved NPU for both Stable Diffusion and Llama 2, and improvements in performance and efficiency.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Specifications
|
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (sm8550) |
|
|---|---|
|
CPU |
|
|
GPU |
|
|
Display |
|
|
AI |
|
|
Memory |
LPDDR5X @ 4800MHz, 24GB |
|
ISP |
|
|
Modem |
|
|
Charging |
Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 |
|
Connectivity |
|
|
Manufacturing Process |
4nm TSMC N4P |
A new core layout
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 yet again changed the core layout from what we expected. Interestingly though is that it matches what Arm suggested for the Total Compute Solutions 2023 cores announced this year, following a 1+5+2 layout. That's one prime core, five performance cores, and three efficiency cores. Those five performance cores are split into two higher-clocked cores and three lower-clocked cores.
With this change to a single Cortex X4 core, five A720 cores, and two A520 cores, this is the first 64-bit-only Qualcomm SoC. Also interesting is that Qualcomm is using five A720 cores but splitting them so that two are clocked higher. The prime core is an Arm Cortex-X4, and it's clocked at 3.3GHz. The Cortex X4 when compared to the last generation should be 15% faster while being 40% more power efficient, but it'll still be a pretty hefty power guzzler when maxed out. On top of that, the Cortex A720 and the Cortex A520 are both more efficient as well.
While Qualcomm advertises this as a 1+5+3 system, it's essentially a 1+2+3+3 system. Qualcomm says that this is because these two threads are for extra heavy performance workloads, and applications such as games may only need two extra performance-oriented threads like this. The two A520 cores can then use Arm's merged core architecture and share resources between them in a "complex." The L2 cache, the L2 translation lookaside buffer, and vector datapaths are shared within this complex.
Staying quiet on the GPU front
Qualcomm has remained quiet on GPU improvements for quite a while now, and we suspect the reason is that there aren't really many changes to make aside from just general efficiency and performance improvements. Qualcomm touts a 25% improvement in performance and a 25% performance improvement in efficiency, which are more or less par for the course when it comes to year-on-year Adreno upgrades. Qualcomm's GPUs have always been some of the best in mobile, and the company seems comfortable maintaining its lead.
AI is where all the improvements lie
Qualcomm is going hard on AI this year. With native support for both Stable Diffusion and Llama 2, Qualcomm means business. This is also why the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has support for 24GB of RAM, as those AI models that the SoC supports up to 10B parameters are large. What's especially interesting is that Qualcomm claims it has the fastest Stable Diffusion in the world at under one second per image generated, which is madness.
Qualcomm implements its LLM support via the AI Engine, and it supports Open AI's Whisper for text-to-speech generation. The company's AI Engine makes use of the Adreno GPU, Hexagon NPU, Qualcomm's Sensing Hub, Kryo CPUs, and memory. LLMs in particular run on the Hexagon NPU, and the Sensing Hub incorporates Whisper. The AI Assistant the company shows off, powered by Llama 2, runs entirely on device and can generate up to 15 tokens per second. It's all part of Qualcomm's AI Stack, which the company clearly wants to be a world leader with.
When will the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 be available?
Qualcomm says that Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered devices will be available soon, starting with devices from Asus, Honor, iQOO, Meizu, Nio, Nubia, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Redmi, Redmagic, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. Given that there are a few months left of the year, we expect that there are a number of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices that will make their way into the list of best phones of the year.