Cheaper chips for high-end phones

With the launch of its flagship Snapdragon 8 SoC, Qualcomm has turned its collective attention to the high-end market this morning, unveiling another new Snapdragon 8 series SoC, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. – A sub-series of low-end market parts to be released under the Snapdragon 8 banner, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (8SG3) is intended to be a bridge part between the previous generation flagship 8 Gen 2 and the current flagship 8 Gen 3, offering performance improvements over Qualcomm’s top SoCs Lower prices provide a non-flagship experience. The new SoC will be available globally this month, with the first phone launching this month, although as is the case with Qualcomm’s “high-end” SoCs, the initial customer list will consist entirely of Chinese phone OEMs.

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is overall an enhanced version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, although Qualcomm prefers to compare it to its current flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Many of the hardware blocks from the 8G2 have been transferred to the new Snapdragon 8s Gen 2. The chip – both overall and functionally – is made very easy by the fact that Qualcomm is building the chip on the same TSMC 4nm node as the 8G2 and 8G3. Compared to the then-current 8G2, the 8SG3 has two key differences: a newer CPU complex upgraded from the 8G3, and generative AI support on official devices.

Starting with the CPU complex, Qualcomm implemented here the latest generation of Arm’s Armv9 CPU cores, which means a mix of Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520. Compared with the flagship 8G3, the 8SG3 gave up one performance core and replaced it with another efficiency core, changing the design from a 1/5/2 configuration to a 1/4/3 configuration – the same as the 8G2. The 8SG2 also lost some frequency headroom in the process, with the X4 prime core dropping from 3.3GHz to 3.0GHz, as did the other CPU cores.

Nonetheless, the 8SG3 should perform better than the 8G2 in CPU tasks, which is the main reason for replacing the CPU complex. Qualcomm basically wants to deliver an 8G2 with better CPU performance and power efficiency, and using Arm’s latest CPU cores will be how they do that.

However, with the exception of the CPU complex, most of the remaining functional blocks are either inherited from the 8G2 or are functional groups of the same generation. This means that the 8SG2’s integrated GPU offers features such as hardware ray tracing, but not the global illumination support introduced in the flagship 8G3. The memory controller is otherwise identical to the 8G2, and the SoC supports the LPDDDRX-8400 up to 24GB.

However, the 8SG3’s video recording and decoding capabilities are significantly down compared to other Snapdragon 8 SoCs. Qualcomm has already retailed three 18-bit Spectra ISPs, so the SoC can support up to 3 cameras, but all 8K support has been completely removed. In contrast, the 8SG2 can only record video at up to 4K, and even then only at 60fps, half the frame rate of the 8G3/8G2. Slow-motion video shooting has also changed; Qualcomm lists 1080p240 for this mode instead of 720p960. There’s no doubt that a higher resolution would be welcome, but not so much if it means not being able to record at faster than 240fps.

The SoC’s video decoding module also lacks 8K video support, and the module can only decode videos up to 4K resolution. However, Qualcomm has kept all the underlying features of the video decoding block at the same level, so the 8SG3 gets support for AV1 decoding as well as Dolby Vision HDR.

Meanwhile, the DSP/NPU situation on the 82G3 is mixed. Officially, the SoC supports generative AI models (up to 10B parameters in size), which is a feature that 8G2 and its NPU do not have and can only be used on 8G3. However, according to Qualcomm, this is not the same generation as the NPU IP on the 8G3, and it lacks support for speculative decoding (and I don’t see any mention of micro-block inference improvements for newer NPUs). So on the surface, this is just the 8G2 NPU. Still, Qualcomm has at least rolled out some software/firmware updates to improve its functionality, giving it additional AI capabilities now that it’s peaked.

Finally, the communication side of 82G3 is essentially a slower version of 8G2. Qualcomm is again using its Snapdragon X70 integrated modem here, a 5G 17th-generation design that offers 2×2 MIMO on mmWave and 4×4 MIMO below 6G. Maximum upload speed remains the same at 3.5Gbps, but the 8SG3’s maximum download speed is 5Gbps, half that of 8G2 (and 8G3). Paired with the X70 modem is Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800 system, which offers Wi-Fi 7 support with 2×2 MIMO, as well as Bluetooth 5.4. The dual BT antenna capabilities of other Snapdragon 8 chips are also featured in this section.

Overall, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 aims to occupy a very specific niche within Qualcomm’s SoC range, providing a cheaper alternative to its flagship SoC without giving up too many features. This time last year, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 aimed at the high-end market, which at least partially overlaps with what they were trying to do with the 8SG3, which makes the marketing message behind the chip a bit complicated. Still, Qualcomm insists there’s a market for chips between the Snapdragon 7 series and flagship Snapdragon 8 SoCs, so here we are.

There isn’t another 7+ chip this year, so it’s hard to think of the 8SG3 as the 7+’s successor. Still, the 7+ is a souped-up version of the 7, and the 8SG3 is clearly a lower-end version of the 8, so it has some significant hardware advantages, especially in terms of memory bandwidth. Qualcomm 7+’s specs may just be aiming a little too low for the high-end market, so this is an attempt to aim a little higher.

Regardless, many common Chinese phone OEMs are expected to adopt the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, including Honor, iQOO, realme, Redmi, and Xiaomi. The first batch of phones is expected to be released this month.