Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, already listed in the Geekbench catalogue. Unofficial performance

Recently, Apple has shown some signs that it may be tempering its efforts around refining its next chipset, the A17 Bionic, with the departure of some of the company’s core engineers suggesting cost cuts. Instead, Samsung’s decision to select a custom version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset only reinforces the importance of Qualcomm’s ready-made successor.

According to rumors, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 already exists in prototype form, with performance tests even appearing “leaked” on the internet by Qualcomm engineers or partners. Real or not, early performance tests with the SD8 Gen 3 outline a predictable performance jump of about 20% over the current generation SD8 Gen 2.

Achieving scores of 1930 and 6236 points in Geekbench 5 tests, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is expected to be six times faster than the Apple A16 solution (1874 and 5384 points) already found in the iPhone 14 handsets. Most likely, SD8 Gen 3 performance is not the final one, and it remains to be seen if the A17 Bionic successor can be optimized enough to reconfirm the performance advantage. Another piece of information is that Qualcomm’s next chipset is also 20% more power efficient than the current Gen 2 solution, but it’s unclear whether the claim is valid under performance-maximising conditions, or just relative to the performance of the previous generation chip.

Most likely achieved using the manufacturing process on the 3 nanometers, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will debut early next year at the earliest, powering the next generation of flagship phones.