(Credit: Qualcomm)
Qualcomm on Tuesday announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, its premium system-on-a-chip for mobile devices. The 8 Gen 3 will be the engine behind the leading Android phones and tablets over the coming year. Much like last year's 8 Gen 2, the new SoC banks on AI to set it apart from competing chips. What's different is that Qualcomm is pushing generative AI in particular directly onto devices for faster and more secure results.
In addition to on-device generative AI, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 makes improvements to core aspects of the SoC, including Snapdragon Connect, Snapdragon Elite Gaming, Snapdragon Sight, and Snapdragon Sound. AI calculations should lead to stronger connections between devices across longer distances, 240fps gaming with more realistic lighting, generative AI backgrounds and in-video object erasers, and higher-quality music streaming.
The first consumer devices are expected to reach the market in just a few weeks.
Better, Faster, Stronger, Smarter
Qualcomm changed up the chip architecture again to better manage how devices balance performance needs with efficiency. The 8 Gen 3's Kryo CPU is built around a 4nm process and is still an octa-core SoC but now has a single prime core, five performance cores, and two efficiency cores. Last year's 8 Gen 2 and a one-four-three core configuration. The prime core is an Arm Cortex-X4 clocked at up to 3.3GHz, while the performance cores are clocked at up to 3.2GHz and the efficiency cores are clocked at up to 2.3GHz. The CPU has access to a 12MB L3 cache and delivers 30% faster peformance compared to the outgoing chip.
(Credit: Qualcomm)The Adreno GPU sees improvements across the board as well. Qualcomm says it pushes 25% faster performance along with 25% better power efficiency and can support a 1Hz variable refresh rate for low-power displays.
More memory means better multitasking. The 8 Gen 3 supports up to 24GB of LPDDR5x system memory at up to 4,800MHz. Phones that shipped with the 8 Gen 2 on board typically had between 8GB and 16GB of system memory. Jumping to 24GB is a big deal.
The Hexagon neural processing unit (NPU) received a lot of attention from Qualcomm. The NPU has dedicated power rails for accelerators, upgraded micro tile inferencing, and 2x the shared memory bandwidth, which leads to higher speeds pushed into the Tensor accelerator. The whole system has higher clock speeds that deliver 98% faster performance with a 40% improvement in efficiency. The NPU works together with the revised Sensing Hub (up to 3.5x more AI performance based in INT4 support), Kryo CPU, Adreno GPU, and total system memory to form the Qualcomm AI engine.
(Credit: Qualcomm)Qualcomm trained the AI engine on the Meta Llama 2 large language model as well as Whisper for the front end and open-source TTS for the output. Qualcomm is working with more than 20 other AI models at launch to ensure top AI performance. The result is the ability for the chip to take text and voice prompts and process them on the device itself rather than pushing them to the cloud. This ensures privacy, speed, and efficiency.
Advanced Connections
Qualcomm has paired the 8 Gen 3 with its latest modem for mobile devices, the Snapdragon X75. The X75 is ready to support 5G Adanced with mmWave (8 carriers, 2x2 MIMO), and sub-6GHz (4x4 MIMO) in both standalone and non-standalone modes. Downlink speeds can reach a (theoretical) max of 10Gbps, while uplink speeds can top 3.5Gbps. Qualcomm is empowering the modem with AI to help manage the cellular radio and ensure it always delivers the best network peformance available, whether that be 5G, 4G, or Wi-Fi.
In addition to 5G, the SoC packs upgraded location tech. It can support BeiDou, Galileo, Glonass, GPS, and QZS5 concurrently. Of note, it supports triple GNSS frequencies (L1, L2C, and L5), which will make for better urban pedestrian navigation with sidewalk-level accuracy and vehicle navigation with lane-level accuracy.
The Qualcomm FastConnect system is onboard as well, with support for Wi-Fi 7 (up to 5.8Gbps), HBS multi-link, and dual Bluetooth.
Next-Level Gaming
Qualcomm continues to target mobile gaming with each new Snapdragon generation. This year we see the addition of the Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0, which supports 120fps gaming.
(Credit: Qualcomm)The Unreal Engine 5-Lumen is a real-time global illumination and reflections renderer that takes ray tracing another step forward. The 8 Gen 3 can handle up to 8K resolutions (even though most phones ship with 2K or under displays), as well as high-speed 240Hz displays. The 1Hz Qsync variable refresh rate support can help save power along the way.
Photo Fakery for the Fun of It
When Google announced the Pixel 8 Pro and showed off the phone's photo-editing powers, some remarked that the ability to dramatically change the very nature of an image bordered on lying. Well, Qualcomm wants you to lie (sort of).
(Credit: Qualcomm)The 8 Gen 3's expanded AI powers allow for all sorts of interesting end-user features. First, there's the on-device Stable Diffusion. Phones powered by the 8 Gen 3 will allow people to suggest prompts like "man playing guitar in the woods" and get a custom image rendered on their phone in about one second. Moreover, eight freshly tuned features on the 8 Gen 3 improve Snapdragon Site, the SoC's image processing engine.
Photo expansion is a new tool that relies on features of generative AI to expand the background of an image. Say you have a tightly cropped photo of a person standing on a rock with mountains in the background. The 8 Gen 3's ISP will allow you to make the picture bigger and create a wider scene that mimics what's already there. Twelve-layer semantic segmentation breaks images down into a wider set of planes that can then be edited individually. For example, segmenting not just the sky, but the background sky color and the clouds on top of it, along with parts of the foreground and even individual parts of a persoon, such as the color of their clothes, hair, skin, and eyes.
(Credit: Qualcomm)The Video Object Eraser feature is similar to Google's Magic Eraser and Magic Editor, only it works on video stored on the phone (rather than video backed up to the cloud). Snapdragon Sight can also pull more detail out of night shots, and support up to 10-bit/Rec. 2020 color in Dolby HDR photo capture with over 1 billion shades of color. It also can capture enhanced video bokeh in 1080p30 video with better depth and color.
It's Almost Here
Phones are adopting Qualcomm's latest chip within the next few weeks, says the company. Brands including Asus, Honor, iQoo, Meizu, Nio, Nubia, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE all plan to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in their upcoming flagships.
As usual, Samsung's brand did not appear on the list of supporters, but the 8 Gen 2 powered most of the Korean firm's 2023 devices and you should expect the same for its 2024 lineup. The Galaxy S24 may show up as soon as January. Many other 8 Gen 3-powered devices will follow come the Mobile World Congress trade show in February.
(Note: PCMag is attending Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit by invitation, but in keeping with our ethics policy, we have assumed all costs for travel and lodging for the conference.)