Qualcomm has announced its latest flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, with major performance upgrades. The company made the announcements during its annual Snapdragon Summit event. Qualcomm claims the 8 Gen 3 is the first processor to focus on generative AI models.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Brings New AI Features
Qualcomm claims the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is the first chip to feature Qualcomm AI Engine. It supports multi-modal generative AI models, including large language models (LLM), language vision models (LVM) and network-based automatic speech recognition (ASR). All AI capabilities are processed solely on the device.
Furthermore, the company claims it has the world’s fastest stable diffusion speeds that can generate images at a fraction of a second. The chip also utilizes Qualcomm Sensing Hub to secure your data, such as your fitness level, favourite activities, and location and offer personalized responses via the AI virtual assistant.
It offers up to 98 per cent faster Qualcomm Hexagon NPU performance and is 40 per cent more power efficient. There are also AI camera features, such as Semantic Segmentation, to enhance the details and vibrancy of images in real-time.
You also use the Video Object Eraser to remove unwanted people and objects from videos. Photo Expansion utilizes generative AI to create the rest of the image, while the Vlogger’s View lets you capture using the selfie and rear camera simultaneously.
You also get support for Dolby HDR and Zoom Anyplace, which uses Samsung’s 200-megapixel image sensor to capture multiple videos and object tracking with 2x or 4x zoom in 4K.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Specifications
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset is based on a 4nm process, and this octa-core chipset features one Cortex-X4 Prime core at 3.3Ghz, five performance cores at 3.2GHz and two efficiency cores at 2.3GHz.
Qualcomm claims the CPU can offer 30 per cent better performance and 20 per cent power efficiency compared to the 8 Gen 2. Furthermore, the new chip provides 25 per cent better GPU performance and power efficiency in graphic-intensive tasks. It is 40 per cent better in ray tracing and can provide a 10 per cent overall power savings.
The 8 Gen 3 claims to offer “console-defying” gaming with its 240 FPS support on a 240Hz refresh rate display. There is also support for Unreal Engine 5.2 and Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0.
Regarding connectivity, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has Wi-Fi 7, 5G and Bluetooth 5.4 support. The company uses the new Snapdragon X75 5G modem, which it claims is the first 5G modem with an integrated AI tensor hardware accelerator.
You also get USB 3.1 Gen 2 on the Type-C port, LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage support. The latest chipset lets you enjoy 24-bit 96kHz lossless audio over music thanks to Snapdragon Sound with new Qualcomm Personal Area Network Technology.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Availablity.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen will power the latest flagship phones in the coming weeks. Brands like ASUS, Honor, iQOO, MEIZU, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE will use the flagship chipset.
The upcoming iQOO 12 will be among the first phones to feature the latest chipset. It will debut on November 7 in China, making it the first gaming phone to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.