Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: First benchmarks and analysis

However, the centrepiece is still the CPU and the GPU. The former continues to be based on eight cores but these are organized differently: The first cluster is occupied by a prime core (Cortex X4) that runs at 3.3 GHz and this is joined by five performance cores (all Cortex A720) from which three operate at up to 3.2 GHz and two at up to 3.0 GHz. In the third cluster, there are two efficiency cores (Cortex A520) which run at up to 2.3 GHz.

This year, we have not (so far) been able to carry out any of our own benchmarks. Instead, Qualcomm has entrusted us with the corresponding benchmark results for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. In recent years, we additionally received these and they were always in keeping with our own results. This year, the basis for the benchmarks is served by a so-called Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) that possesses a 6.65-inch AMOLED display (2,340 x 1,080 pixels, at up to 144 Hz) and has 24 GB of LPDDR5x RAM as well as 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage at its disposal. The device's battery packs 4,192 mAh and is powered by the Android 14 operating system. 

The CPU performance is impressive. As expected, the single-core performance in Geekbench 6.1 can't keep up with an Apple A17 Pro but when all of the cores work together, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has its nose in front. Also, in comparison to its predecessor, the new Qualcomm SoC ups the ante greatly and even manages to achieve a plus of up to 57 percent.

In AnTuTu, the increase is also significant and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 easily manages to beat the iPhone 15 Pro Max. A look at the individual sub-scores shows this is especially attributed to the considerably stronger GPU performance.