If you’re not interested in a mid-range smartphone, but don’t want to pay the flagship prices either, Qualcomm has a possible solution. The company has just introduced Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor It offers flagship features but is slightly inferior in performance Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
It is built using a 4 nanometer (nm) process (one core ARM Cortex X4 at 3.0GHz, four performance cores at 2.8GHz and three 2.0GHz efficiency cores) with a 1+4+3 core setup. This compares to the Snapdragon 8 Gen. 3 is a 1+5+2 setup, so the “s” model replaces the performance core with an efficiency core. The main core on the flagship chip also runs a bit faster at 3.4Ghz.
The chip uses the previous generation X70 5G modem, although it still offers Wi-Fi 7 support. You also get hardware-accelerated ray tracing for more realistic gameplay.
The device has multimodal generative AI that can run large language models (LLMs) with up to 10 billion parameters, meaning it will support models like the Gemini Nano alongside AI assistants. However, the 8 is missing some of the AI features found on the Gen 3 chip. It also comes with the always responsive ISP introduced with the latest generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip.
The new chip adds another subcategory to Qualcomm’s lineup, especially if you count the last-generation chips still used in devices like this one. OnePlus 12R. The chip will appear in Honor, iQOO, Realme, Redmi and Xiaomi smartphones announced later this month – so it will be interesting to see how they fare against the flagship models.
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