Qualcomm has unveiled its latest flagship Mobile Platform, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, during the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2023.
Compared to its predecessor, the new Kryo CPU featuring five gold cores boasts a 30% improvement in performance and a 20% increase in power efficiency, thanks to its new 1-5-2 microarchitecture. It comprises 1 Prime core clocked at up to 3.3 GHz, 5 Performance cores running at up to 3.2 GHz, and 2 Efficiency cores operating at speeds of up to 2.3 GHz.
The enhanced Qualcomm Adreno GPU delivers a 25% boost in performance and a 25% improvement in power efficiency. Furthermore, it offers a 40% enhancement in Ray Tracing compared to its predecessor. Notably, it features a 1Hz Variable Refresh Rate in DPU for energy-efficient display modes. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 also introduces a full suite of Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, featuring Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing with Global Illumination, a pioneering feature for mobile devices powered by Unreal Engine 5.2. This chip supports refresh rates of up to 240 FPS on 240 Hz displays.
The Snapdragon Game Super Resolution can upscale game scenes to 8K on external displays, and the Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0 doubles the frame rate while maintaining the same power consumption for even higher-quality scenes.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is compatible with a chatbot trained on Meta's Llama 2, capable of receiving text, image, and voice input. It has the ability to respond in kind, generating both images and text. Notably, the chipset runs the on-device AI image generator, Stable Diffusion. Qualcomm previously demonstrated this technology earlier this year, and now, it can produce an image in under one second. To put it in perspective, the previous iteration took about 15 seconds to generate an image.
The Qualcomm Sensing Hub sees a 3.5x increase in AI performance, and the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU delivers a 98% boost in speed with up to 40% performance per watt improvements compared to its predecessor.
The platform incorporates a Spectra 18-bit triple Cognitive ISP with 12 layers. It introduces the Video Object Eraser for video capture, allowing the removal of unwanted elements. Always-sensing cameras on both the front and back enable quick QR code scanning and face unlock.
Zoom Anyplace, powered by Samsung's 200 MP image sensor optimised for Snapdragon, supports multiple video capture modes, object tracking, and 2x and 4x zoom, all in 4K. Dolby's HDR photo technology offers a broader range of colours, tones, and shades for more creative image capture. Truepic photo capture with C2PA standard support ensures the authenticity of photos.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 features the Snapdragon X75 5G Modem RF System with integrated AI tensor hardware acceleration. This is the world's first 5G modem to offer this, enhancing speeds, coverage, mobility, link robustness, and location accuracy.
It supports Wi-Fi 7 with speeds of up to 5.8 Gbps and dual Bluetooth connectivity for a more immersive experience, thanks to the new Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 Mobile Connectivity System. It's the only Wi-Fi system supporting High Band Simultaneous Multi-Link for blazing fast, low-latency performance.
Qualcomm has confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform will be adopted by global OEMs and brands, including ASUS, Honor, iQOO, MEIZU, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE, with the first commercial devices expected in the coming weeks.