Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, officially announced last fall, is just now starting to appear on smartphones launched in Europe, but the technological advance is not slowing down. Already there’s “inside information” about Qualcomm’s next top chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which could come with major changes to the interior design. Basically, this model would be equipped with even more high-performance cores than before, for a major new performance boost.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 could integrate 6 performance cores and only 2 “efficient” ones
Kuba Wojciechowski, a software developer who appears to have access to reliable sources, and who has provided other information in the past that was confirmed after the official announcement, has posted a list of internal core specifications for Qualcomm’s next top chipset on his Twitter account. It’s not directly called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but most likely that will be the name the company will use.
Currently, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 uses a new configuration with four types of ARM cores in the 1+2+2+3 format. We’re talking about a high-performance Cortex-X3 main core, along with two Cortex-A715 “performance” cores, two more “performance” cores from the previous generation Cortex-A710, and three efficient Cortex-A510 cores. Previously, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 used the 1+3+4 format.
However, it seems that on the next generation, Qualcomm will drop another efficiency core. The internal core format will be 1+2+3+2, with one “Gold+” core from the main Cortex-X series, two “Titanium” cores from the performance Cortex-A7XX series, three “Gold” cores also from the Cortex-A7XX series, and just two “efficiency” cores. The model number of the new processor will be SM-8650 and the project codename is Lanai.
According to my sources, the SoC will have the following CPU config:
2x Arm codename Hayes (A5xx) “silver” cores
3x Arm codename Hunter (A7xx) “gold” colours
2x Arm codename Hunter (A7xx) “titanium” cores
1x Arm codename Hunter ELP (Xn) “gold+” core– Kuba Wojciechowski :3 (@Za_Raczke) March 23, 2023
Given that up until now processors used “efficient” cores to reduce power consumption, we can expect an increase in power consumption on a 6 core performance format and only two low power cores. On the other hand, if the new processor will be built on a new 3nm manufacturing process, it could be more efficient than the current generation.
Of course, a new GPU, called the Adreno 750, is also expected to be more powerful, along with dropping support for 32-bit apps.
This is just the first information about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. We’ll certainly learn more information throughout the year, as the launch isn’t expected until November. Incidentally, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2, a higher frequency model than the “standard” model, is also expected before that.