The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: AI superman in a smartphone SoC chip
Date: 30/10/2023
More realistic, edge-empowering text based and image-based generative AI is coming to your android smart phones powered by the new snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC processor chip from Qualcomm . It is almost the most powerful android smartphone SOC launched in the market as of now. 8 Gen 3 SoC processor chip is fabricated by TSMC using 4nm fabrication node. Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 looks to be performing on par with most advanced Apple iPhone chips.
Features such as increased level of personalisation, generative AI assisted video editing, camera lighting effects, enhanced privacy are realized by using smartphones designed using Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. App developers can now leverage ample AI processing ability such as on device LLM with 7 billion parameters inside this chip for any totally new creative features. Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 to support up to 10 Billion parameters and 20 tokens per second.
Many developers have shared the performance benchmark test results of this new chip. Here is one such post on X with scores such as:
• GeekBench 6 single: 2329
• GeekBench 6 multi: 7501
• AnTuTu 10: 2,139,381
• 3DMark Wild Life: 19114
• 3DMark Wild Life Extreme: 5338
• 3DMark Solar Bay: 8547
• GFXBench - Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen: 83 fps (OpenGL)/96 fps (Vulkan)
• GFXBench - Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Offscreen: 241 fps
The more authentic benchmarks covered in the new story titled "Qualcomm shares Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's official benchmarks".
In the article titled "Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 benchmarks rival the Apple A17 Pro", the performance of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 compared with other previous Qualcomm chips and the phones powered by this chip is compared with other phones at:
Below are some of the key points, features, and comments taken from release on this product by Qualcomm:
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is the first mobile platform meticulously designed with generative AI in mind, delivering industry leading AI, chart topping camera capabilities, console-defying gaming, studio-quality audio all backed by the world’s fastest connectivity to power the experiences consumers want.
Flagship Android devices powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 are expected to be available in the coming weeks.
Leading android smartphone vendors such as ASUS, Honor, Iqoo, MEIZU, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE launch new smart phones powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.Honor Magic 6 Pro powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 to be launched sooner. Xiaomi 14 is also to be powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
“Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 infuses high-performance AI across the entire system to deliver premium-level performance and extraordinary experiences to consumers. This platform unlocks a new era of generative AI enabling users to generate unique content, help with productivity, and other breakthrough use cases.” said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Each year, we set out to design leading features and technologies that will power our latest Snapdragon 8-series mobile platform and the next generation of flagship Android devices. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 delivers.”
Some more featues from the Qualcomm release:
AI Engine to support multi-modal generative AI models, including
popular large language models (LLM), language vision models (LVM), and
transformer network-based automatic speech recognition (ASR) up to 10B parameters—solely on-device.
Artificial Intelligence
Qualcomm AI Engine
Qualcomm Adreno GPU
Qualcomm Kryo CPU
Qualcomm Hexagon NPU
Fused AI accelerator architecture
Hexagon scalar, vector, and tensor accelerators
Hexagon Direct Link
Upgraded Micro Tile Inferencing
Upgraded power delivery system
Support for mix precision (INT8+INT16)
Support for all precisions (INT4, INT8, INT16, FP16)
Up to 98% faster Qualcomm Hexagon NPU performance and up to 40% performance/watt.
Up to 3.5x AI performance increase on the Qualcomm Sensing Hub.
Video Object Eraser by Arcsoft for video capture removes unwanted people and objects at the tap of a finger.
Photo Expansion intuitively extends a photo beyond what was captured.
Maximize mobile gaming performance by upscaling game scenes up to 8K external displays with Snapdragon Game Super Resolution.
Kryo CPU 30% better performance and 20% power efficiency.
25% better GPU performance and 25% power efficiency, plus 40%
better Ray Tracing. 10% overall power savings.
Qualcomm Kyro CPU
64-bit Architecture
1 Prime core, up to 3.3 GHz
Arm Cortex-X4 technology
5 Performance cores, up to 3.2 GHz
2 Efficiency cores, up to 2.3 GHz
Supports 24-bit 96 kHz lossless music over Bluetooth.
World’s first 5G modem with an integrated AI tensor hardware accelerator achieves better speeds, coverage, mobility, link robustness, and location accuracy.
More detailed specifications Source 1:
More detailed specifications Source 2:
Are you interested to go deep and watch recorded video of prsentation at Snapdragon Summit 2023, click this to watch the video
Comments made by executives working with Qualcomm's customers and its partners:
“At ASUS, we’re passionate about innovation and aspire to be incredible in everything we do,“ said S.Y. Hsu, co-CEO of ASUS. “With the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 onboard, the 2024 flagship ASUS mobile phones will open new horizons. Mobile users everywhere will be able to harness the power of artificial intelligence for more creative, productive, and secure online experiences.”
“Congratulations to Qualcomm Technologies on your launch of the new flagship chipset. Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is leading the industry in on-device AI support for large models, ISP, multi-mode communications, hardware and software system architecture, which opens up new possibilities to devices,” said Fang Fei, President of Product Line, HONOR Device Co., Ltd. “Honor follows a two-wheel drive strategy of consumer experiences and technology innovations, and we have deep expertise in products and technologies, such as foldable devices, power efficiency scheduling, camera, communication and OS based on years of consumer experience insights. A prospective, in-depth, and distinctive mechanism for technology innovation collaboration has been developed between Honor and Qualcomm Technologies. We’ll work together to bring consumers more iconic flagship products. We wish the new Snapdragon flagship mobile platform a great success!”
“Xingji Meizu Group will continue to maintain a close collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies to jointly create more amazing products for consumers, and provide users with multi-device, all-scenario and immersive integration experiences,” said Ziyu Shen, Chairman and CEO of Xingji Meizu Group.
“Generative AI is poised to unleash unprecedented productivity, ease of use, and personalization for smartphone users by delivering the power of large language models to flagship mobile phones,” said Mark Montierth, corporate vice president and general manager of Micron’s Mobile Business Unit. “Micron’s 1ß LPDDR5X combined with Qualcomm Technologies’ AI-optimized Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform empowers smartphone manufacturers with the next-generation performance and power efficiency essential to enabling revolutionary AI technology at the edge.”
“Microsoft is excited by the potential Snapdragon Seamless has to enhance our Link to Windows technology,” said Gerald Haslhofer, VP, Android Microsoft Platform & Experiences, Microsoft.
“We are excited to collaborate with Qualcomm Technologies on Snapdragon Seamless and unlock new multi-device experiences for our consumers,” Jeff Snow, Executive Director of Global Innovation and Software Experience at Motorola, said. “This cross-platform technology places consumer needs at the center and furthers our commitment to building an integrated product ecosystem.”
“The deep cooperation between NIO and Qualcomm Technologies on smart cars and smartphones based on Snapdragon platforms brings innovative use scenarios and enhances drivers' experience on the connectivity between vehicles and smartphones,” said Feng Shen, Executive Vice President, Chairman of Quality Management Committee of NIO. “The first generation of NIO Phone equipped with Snapdragon mobile platform was widely acclaimed by users after its launch. We are pleased to see the debut of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform. NIO and Qualcomm Technologies will work together to utilize Snapdragon cutting-edge technology for creating a joyful life for users.”
Pete Lau, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer at OPPO said, "over the past year, OPPO and Qualcomm Technologies have collaborated closely in areas including product innovation, cutting-edge technology development, and empowering ecosystem innovators. Our work with Qualcomm Technologies will continue to redefine the flagship smartphone performance and delivering exceptional experience to users globally.”
“We’re thrilled to see the launch of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform. Qualcomm Technologies is an important part of realme's dare-to-leap journey, developing products with cutting-edge performance and leap-forward technologies for global users together,” said Chase Xu, realme VP. “The upcoming realme GT5 Pro is equipped with this leading flagship chipset. We’ll deepen our collaboration to bring our fans next-level optimization on hardware and software and bring a comprehensive upgrade to performance and camera experience.”
“As the pioneer in the gaming phone category, RedMagic has always taken it as its mission to break the limits of performance and create professional gaming equipment,” said Hang Yu, Executive VP, Nubia Technology Co., Ltd. “The upcoming RedMagic’s new product will adopt the new flagship platform. With the support of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, we believe that the performance of RedMagic's new product will be even more powerful and become the performance king that game users love.”
“With each generation of Snapdragon 8-series mobile platform, Sony has continuously enhanced experiences for imaging, audio visual content, and gaming on Xperia smartphones. Enabled by the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s premium-tier performance, Sony will further deepen its unique experiences and continue to offer them to users anytime, anywhere,” said Ryo Ochi, General Manager of Product Planning, Mobile Communications Business Group, Sony Corporation.
“It is clear that generative capabilities are moving on-device. It is critical that chipsets now power transparency and authenticity from the point of creation. We believe deploying the provenance open standard on-device is one of the most significant breakthroughs toward a more authentic internet and will be the model moving forward. We are proud to continue working with Qualcomm Technologies to continually provide tools that will scale authenticity online,” said Jeff McGregor, Truepic CEO.
“The new era of AI is coming, and its value can be maximized only by constantly improving the on-device capabilities of large generative models. Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform blows my mind as it runs our self-developed large models at lightning speed, while the desktop-level gaming features are very anticipated as well,” said Yujian Shi, Senior Vice President & CTO at vivo. “Both vivo and iQOO will launch flagship devices powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and the upcoming iQOO 12 will bring unprecedented surprise.”
“Xiaomi is committed to providing the best mobile experiences to Mi fans around the globe,” said Weibing Lu, President of Xiaomi Group. “Xiaomi 14 series will be the first smartphones around the globe to debut with the brand-new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform, which not only has excellent on-device AI performance, but also incredible power efficiency. All variants can fully unleash its power, stay tuned.”
“Congratulations on the debut of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform. Nubia flagship smartphone based on Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is coming soon. Inheriting the professional camera features, the new device will bring more comprehensive and all-round camera, performance, and design,” said Wei Luo, Vice President of ZTE Corporation, General Manager of Terminal Product. “Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 delivers more powerful computing capability and excellent on-device AI performance, enabling nubia Z series, the new camera flagship, to offer consumers new extreme experiences. Meanwhile, ZTE devices will keep bringing breakthroughs in innovative areas such as glass-free 3D, satellite communications and AIGC.”
Watch this video posted on X by Qualcomm to have a better understanding:
However if you are company or a developer, you do get hardly anything online, you got connect with Qualcomm executive to access developer information.
Qualcomm has not disclosed the number of transistors in Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, at 4 nm it's easily around 20 Billion and more. It's our estimate.
