Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: Key specs revealed by alleged engineering sample benchmark

So far, there has been very little information about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Outside of Qualcomm's accidental reveal of its codename (Sun), everything else has been speculation or rumour. Now, an intrepid Bilibili user (H/T @negativeonehero on X) has benchmarked an early Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 engineering sample.

First, the reference device gets tested in what looks like AnTuTu, where it scores a paltry 1,769,083 points. This is due to the CPU throttling heavily; not an entirely uncommon occurrence in pre-production hardware. A closer look at the CPU cores sheds light on its layout and clocks.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 was rumoured to launch with 6 performance and 2 efficiency cores. A close look at the video reveals the six performance cores (Phoenix M) will have a max clock of 2.4 GHz, while the efficiency cores (Phoenix L) will be restricted to 1.939 GHz. Later, we get to see "Sun for Arm x64" in the video, further confirming the chip's identity.

This sits in line with earlier reports about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. However, others stated the coveted 4.2 GHz figure would come at the price of high voltage (1.3 V) and power consumption. It is very likely for Qualcomm to readjust the clocks later to keep thermals in check.

The soon-to-be announced Dimensity 9300+ limits its Cortex-X4 core to just 3.4 GHz. Thus, the Cortex-X5-powered MediaTek Dimensity 9400 and Exynos 2500 are unlikely to come anywhere near the 4.2 GHz mark. Instead, they'll rely on solid IPC gains to make up for raw clocks.