Specs, options and what it could deliver to 2024 flagship smartphones

Qualcomm introduced its newest flagship cell platform – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – throughout its Snapdragon Summit and this yr, it is not nearly pace enhancements in comparison with the earlier era – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

The corporate spoke so much about synthetic intelligence and bringing AI on machine to deliver new experiences to smartphones. That is solely a part of the story nevertheless, because the platform brings plenty of enhancements throughout the board, together with new options and efficiency boosts.

That is all the things you could know concerning the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform, together with what it is going to ship to Android smartphones that use it – considered one of which has already been introduced – what options it helps and what gadgets we will count on to run on the platform.

How highly effective is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3?

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is predicated on a 4nm course of with 64-bit structure, just like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. In comparison with a 5nm course of, a 4nm course of permits for shorter journey of present throughout the CPU, leading to higher effectivity and energy saving potential. For the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm has mentioned there’s a 10 per cent energy saving general in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and there are enhancements throughout all subsystems.

There have been some adjustments to the construction of the next-generation cell platform with a 1:5:2 configuration in comparison with the earlier platform’s 1:4:3. This sees the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 provide a primary prime core as much as 3.3GHz, 5 efficiency cores as much as 3.2GHz and two effectivity cores as much as 2.3GHz. It means there’s an additional efficiency core and one much less effectivity core in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, or should you’re evaluating it to the primary era of the Snapdragon 8, then you definately’ll discover two extra efficiency cores on the most recent platform and two much less effectivity cores.

All this interprets to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 claiming to ship a 30 per cent bump in efficiency in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and 20 per cent extra effectivity. Additionally it is mentioned to supply 25 per cent sooner graphics, 25 per cent higher energy effectivity and 40 per cent higher Ray Tracing capabilities, so there are a selection of enhancements right here.

There have additionally been vital enhancements to the Hexagon NPU, which is the factor accountable for on-device AI. For the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, it is mentioned to be 98 per cent sooner than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, in addition to 40 per cent extra environment friendly. The Sensing Hub has been upgraded too, with INT4 precision assist, 30 per cent extra reminiscence and as much as 3.5x extra energy when it comes to AI efficiency.

Elsewhere, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 helps LLDRX5 RAM as much as 4800MHz, which is useful for speedy processing of computational duties, akin to AI, and there is additionally assist for Wi-Fi 7, 5G Superior Relay and Twin Bluetooth.

What options does the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 assist?

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has been designed with generative AI in thoughts. It was a subject of the Snapdragon Summit occasion, not simply with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform, however the firm’s new X Elite platform for PCs too. There’s a lot to speak about as regards to AI, however there are different options price highlighting too. Here’s a breakdown of the important thing parts.

Generative AI

AI is in all places now and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 makes it a key focus of its providing. It needs to ship a brand new period of generative AI-powered assistants and remodel the best way we work together with our smartphones and it is claiming to be the “titan of on-device intelligence”. We’re not simply speaking concerning the potential of sooner Google Assistant responses right here. As an alternative, we’re speaking about receiving a textual content message about assembly up on Sunday with a buddy and your telephone with the ability to let you know the instances you are free on Sunday, while providing up options of the place you might go together with your buddy, all in your machine with out the necessity to enter the cloud. Different demonstrations noticed the flexibility to ask the AI assistant to take a look at flights to a specific vacation spot, suggestions dates and instances and airways, and have it come again with choices in addition to then open a flight reserving app.

That is all due to the Sensing Hub that may use your information, akin to favorite actions, health stage, and placement, to permit an AI digital assistant to offer you extra personalised responses. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 options Qualcomm’s first AI engine to assist multi-modal generative AI fashions, together with giant language fashions (LLM), language imaginative and prescient fashions (LVM), and transformer network-based automated speech recognition (ASR) as much as 10B parameters all on-device so there may be heaps of promise right here. Honor has already introduced that the Honor Magic 6 would run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and be powered by on-device LLM with 7 billion parameters.

The AI engine throughout the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can also be claimed to supply the world’s quickest secure diffusion that may will let you generate a picture in a fraction of a second, whereas LLM fashions can run as much as 20 tokens a second (or 20 phrases a second), which might allow fast response from private AI assistants.

Cameras

The AI capabilities do not simply cease at providing personalised responses nevertheless, it is also getting used to boost potential digital camera capabilities. Like its predecessor, Snapdragon Sight is on board the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform, utilising a trio of 18-bit picture sign processors for a variety of doubtless very thrilling options, if smartphone producers select to undertake them in fact.

The Cognitive ISP can enable for AI voice-activated photograph and video enhancing, in addition to individually optimise completely different elements of your photographs in real-time, figuring out objects, from grass to sky, pores and skin to lips, hair to our bodies and making use of a customized remedy to every layer on machine moderately than counting on software program processing. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform helps as much as 12 layers – consider it like Photoshop layers – in comparison with the 8 layers provided on the Gen 2 platform, including element and vibrancy to pictures.

Evening Imaginative and prescient video seize is promising to make use of AI to ship nice content material even at evening – very like Google’s Night Sight Video is predicted to do when it arrives later this yr on the Pixel devices – and that is provided at 4K 60fps. In the meantime, there is a Video Object Eraser by Arcsoft for video seize that removes undesirable individuals and objects on the faucet of a finger.

A characteristic known as Vlogger View means that you can share your selfie digital camera and rear digital camera video concurrently, whereas Zoom Anyplace takes benefit of Samsung’s 200-megapixel sensor to permit for the seize of a number of movies, object monitoring, and 2x and 4x zoom in 4K. In a real-world use case, this may will let you zoom in on a topic and AI will observe it moderately than you having to carry your telephone regular, for instance.

There’s additionally one thing known as Photograph Enlargement, which is attention-grabbing. We talked about when Google launched the Pixel 8 Pro that many photographs it could produce would successfully be faux, and the identical would apply right here, although it’s a neat trick. This characteristic in motion allowed us to decide on a photograph from a gallery and generative AI stuffed in across the shot to offer us a bigger picture, much like what you might need received should you had taken the shot from a wider angle lens.

Different digital camera options that come to Snapdragon Sight with the 8 Gen 3 platform are HDR photograph expertise from Dolby that enables for seize and playback of photographs with higher vary of colors, tones, and shades, and there is additionally Truepic photograph seize with C2PA-compliant certificates authority that may give you info throughout the meta information to let you know when AI has been utilized in a shot.

Just like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 affords assist for 200-megapixel decision, together with codec assist for H.265, VP9 and AV1. Like its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 additionally affords assist for 30 frames per second seize at an enormous 108-megapixel output for burst taking pictures, whereas for video, you possibly can shoot 8K in 10-bit HDR and have sufficient capability remaining to take 64-megapixel stills concurrently. There’s additionally assist for 8K HDR video at 30fps, 4K at 120fps and slo-mo at 720p at 960fps.

Shows

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 helps as much as 4K shows, in addition to exterior shows, similar to the Gen 1 and Gen 2 variations of the Snapdragon 8 platform did. Many producers do not go for 4K shows given their drain on battery life, however the assist is there nonetheless, which little question Sony will respect for its Xperia Pro range.

There’s assist for Quad HD+ resolutions to run at as much as 144Hz for on-device shows, whereas assist for exterior shows is 8K as much as 30Hz and 1080p at as much as 240Hz. In an enchancment over the Gen 2 platform, there may be assist for variable refresh rates between 1Hz and 240Hz, which permits for gaming at 240fps gaming – extra on that in a second.

On the subject of excessive dynamic vary (HDR), the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform affords assist for HLG, HDR10, HDR10+, HDRVivid and Dolby Vision codecs, a lot of which is now very a lot commonplace on flagship smartphones.

Gaming

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 affords Snapdragon Elite Gaming, which is the corporate’s suite of gaming options and there are a selection of enhancements on provide in comparison with the earlier era platform. We talked about the variable refresh charge assist between 1Hz and 240Hz, and this permits for 240fps gaming on 240Hz shows. That ought to enable for tremendous clean, lag-free graphics. Gaming capabilities are additional enhanced by the Unreal Engine 5.2 that enables for {hardware} accelerated Ray Tracing with International Illumination, which ought to imply extra practical gaming experiences with higher reflections.

Whether or not that is one thing players actually need on their smartphone stays to be seen for now, however for these which are keen on enjoying triple A video games throughout platforms, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is providing plenty of helpful options to try to make that have nearly as good as it may be on a smartphone.

Snapdragon Sport Tremendous Decision can also be on board the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform, enabling upscaling sport scenes as much as 8K exterior show. That is open supply and designed for studios who wish to push visible limits of their video games. In the meantime, Adreno Body Movement Engine 2.0 is on board to supply greater high quality scenes due to greater body charges but it surely’s claiming to have the ability to accomplish that with out impacting battery life. We talked about beforehand that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 affords a ten per cent saving in energy in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and it is mentioned this may translate to an additional hour of gaming.

Sound

There was much less talked about about audio for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, although all of final yr’s options are supported, as you’ll count on. Which means there may be Spatial Audio with head monitoring, which like Apple’s version, places you within the centre of the sound popping out of your smartphone, no matter approach you progress your head.

There’s additionally assist for 24-bit 96 kHz lossless music over Bluetooth. That signifies that – for gadgets that undertake Snapdragon Sound – it is possible for you to hear wonderful high quality audio, wherever you’re, with the sound high quality adapting to your atmosphere and the interferences round you. With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 too, a brand new Qualcomm Expanded Private Space Community Know-how (XPAN) permits for uninterrupted lossless audio when away out of your telephone or transferring from room to room, which is the most important enchancment in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Bluetooth 5.4 handles wi-fi connectivity general, whereas Snapdragon Sound Know-how additionally helps the corporate’s aptX Voice, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, and LE audio protocols. Which means with the right high-quality supply and a succesful sufficient headset, you’ll obtain Hello-Res Audio playback – and the adaptive nature of the tech means you may at all times be getting the most effective on provide relying on what you are utilizing.

There’s assist for low-latency Bluetooth streaming when gaming too. Qualcomm has mentioned gameplay sound is synced to the millisecond, which is claimed to ship zero lag for “faucet to bang”, which implies the time it takes between you tapping your display screen whereas gaming to the sound you hear.

Connectivity

In true Qualcomm trend, 5G connectivity performs an enormous a part of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform. It utilises the Snapdragon X75 5G Modem-RF System, which is the primary modem to supply an built-in AI tensor {hardware} accelerator. That is designed to ship higher speeds, protection, mobility, hyperlink robustness, and placement accuracy, although a whole lot of this may in fact depend upon different elements and circumstances.

Equally, the Qualcomm FastConnectTM 7800 Cellular Connectivity System options Wi-Fi 7 claimed to supply “unstoppable speeds”, however that after once more depends upon whether or not you have got a router that may assist Wi-Fi 7. It is mentioned to be the one Wi-Fi system to assist Excessive Band Simultaneous Multi-Hyperlink for tremendous speeds and low-latency efficiency, however that would not be a assure for a lot of.

You get assist for speeds as much as 10Gbps, and there may be assist for each mmWave (8 carriers) and Sub-6GHz 5G applied sciences. That is extra essential for purchasers within the USA, the place mmWave adoption is suspected to extend, however integrating each codecs stays a step forward.

In a nutshell, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is all about super-fast speeds on the go, with an unparalleled 5G providing.

When will Snapdragon Gen 2 gadgets launch?

Smartphones working the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform will seem over the subsequent few months and into 2024. It is anticipated to seem on gadgets from a variety of producers with Xiaomi, Oppo and Honor all confirming their subsequent flagships will run on the platform. Given it is the flagship platform from Qualcomm, it’s anticipated to come back to premium smartphones moderately than mid-range choices.

Xiaomi would be the first firm to launch a tool with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with the Xiaomi 14 series introduced on 26 October 2023. Oppo mentioned the platform will run its flagship gadgets, although did not specify which of them – and Honor introduced the Honor Magic 6 would run on it.

We might additionally count on to see the likes of Sony, OnePlus, Samsung and Motorola utilising the platform for his or her flagship smartphones within the coming yr.