Qualcomm's toned-down Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 takes aim at on-device AI
What you need to know
Qualcomm brings Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 with generative AI features.
It comes with one high-performance core with clock speeds at 3.0GHz.
The latest SoC-powered chipset will be first seen in OEMs, including Xiaomi, Realme, iQOO, Honor, and Redmi.
Qualcomm has a new flagship-tier chipset dubbed Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, which the company announced will power some of the premium-tier flagships from OEMs like Honor, iQOO, Realme, Redmi, and Xiaomi.
The new chipset marks the first Snapdragon 8s series, previously seen in the 7 series portfolio, like the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2.
According to Qualcomm, the new chipset sits between the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and its predecessor, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The chipset comprises device-generative AI features, an always-sensing ISP, hyper-realistic mobile gaming, breakthrough connectivity, and lossless high-definition sound, notes Qualcomm in the announcement post.
The on-device generative AI features include Gen AI assistant, Gen AI image generation, and support for popular Large Language Models (LLM) like Baichuan-7B, Llama 2, Gemini Nano, and Zhipu ChatGLM.
Despite falling under the SD 8 Gen 3, the 8S Gen 3 borrows some of its features like 18-bit triple Cognitive ISP, photo expansion, Snapdragon LLV (Low Light Vision), 2x sHDR, and Qualcomm Aqstic Speaker Max technology. The latter promises to reduce distortion when music is played in higher volumes. The gaming-centric features involve Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing and Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.
On the performance end, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 packs in one prime core CPU with promised clock speeds of up to 3.0GHz (a tad shorter than the 8 Gen 3, which sits at 3.3GHz). The octa-core CPU is further backed by four performance and three efficiency cores. The 5G-enabled chipset includes a Snapdragon X70 5G Modem-RF system — the same one seen on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Other notable features of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 include Quad HD Plus display support at 144Hz refresh rate, HDR10/10+ support, Quick Charge 5 technology, support for LPDDR5x memory, a UFS 4.0 interface, and USB 3.1 Gen 2.
Lastly, the aforementioned OEMs will likely bring their first-best Android phones featuring the chipset in the coming months; however, Qualcomm notes that Xiaomi could be the first to join the list with a device coming later this month.
