Qualcomm boasts a wide range of smartphone chipsets aimed at different price segments. From high-end to affordable ones, the US foundry has made a name as a leading chip manufacturer. This time, Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, a rather affordable mobile platform from the company for premium budget phones with WiFi 7 and 5G support among others.
In its classification, the latest silicon sits moderately below the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 hardware. As is the custom, the chipset will debut with devices from leading smartphone OEMs such as Xiaomi, Honor, Redmi, realme, etc. in the coming months.
In terms of performance, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 boasts octa-core processing featuring a 1+4+3 architecture. To illustrate, the chipset features a Prime Core at 3.0 GHz, four Performance Cores at 2.8 GHz, and three Efficiency Cores that clock at 2.0 GHz.
Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 for gaming
If you are curious, the Prime Core offers the highest performance caliber on smartphones useful for gaming. When you use graphics-heavy games and apps, this core activates to deliver smooth operations. Likewise, the other 3 and 4 cores keep the tasks running while also keeping battery efficiency in check. For the GPU, Qualcomm has paired it with the Adreno unit which supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Also, it features Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0 which doubles the frame rate with optimum battery efficiency. At the same time, the chipset comes with the Snapdragon Game Super Resolution which adds extra pixels to the images. All combined, it offers immersive gaming and visual aesthetics.
Similarly, the chipset supports LPDDR5x RAM and the common UFS 4.0 storage system. Let’s not forget that it is a 4nm build with Snapdragon™ X70 5G Modem-RF System, the same as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 features: Supports 5G and WiFi 7
With this chipset onboard, the device supports 8 Gbps peak download speed and 3.5 Gbps upload speed. It also supports 8 carriers (mmWave), 2×2 MIMO (mmWave), and 4×4 MIMO (Sub-6) connectivity. As for wireless internet, the chipset works on FastConnect 7800. Therefore, it enables WiFi 7 internet connectivity with speeds up to 5.8 Gbps possible in a perfect environment. That happens with 320 MHz channels, 4K QAM, and tri-band support. Additionally, it brings Bluetooth 5.4 and Low Energy features.
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200 Mp camera
About the optics, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 supports a triple-camera setup with a single camera rocking up to a 200 MP or a 108 MP sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS). For video recording, the chipset lets the smartphone camera shoot videos at 4K@60 fps. It’s not getting the 8K video record luxury. However, it includes other features such as slow-motion video capture at 1080p@240fps and Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, Google Ultra HDR, etc.
To the display aesthetics, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset offers a QHD+ screen, 144 Hz refresh rate, and 10-bit color depth. The display comes with support for HDR 10, HDR 10+, and HDR Vivid technologies which translates into higher and crisp visuals on the device’s screen.
Other noticeable support includes Qualcomm Quick Charge 5, USB 3.1 Gen2, (USB-C), and other standard navigation features and sensors.
On-device Generative AI
The S8sG3 chipset supports over 30 large language models (LLMs) and large vision models (LVMs). So, the chipset can process some popular LLMs such as Llama 2, Gemini AI (Nano), etc. With this feature, users can generate content from words, texts, or image prompts. Qualcomm says that the silicon can support up to 10 billion parameters. In essence, the chipset brings on-device AI to more affordable handsets and that’s an exciting direction for the smartphone.
Which smartphones will come with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3?
Qualcomm says that its Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipsets will be used in Honor, iQOO, realme, and Xiaomi/Redmi mobile phones. The devices should launch in the next few months, in 2024. And given that it’s a premium mid-range chipset, mobile phones that come under the very category will use it.
