Rumor | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Exynos 2300 tipped to be even less efficient thanks to thirsty Cortex-X3 cores

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Exynos 2200, and—to a lesser extent, the MediaTek Dimensity 9000—have come under fire for less than optimal efficiency. That is in no small part due to ARM's new cores, with the Cortex-X2 being less efficient than its predecessor, the Cortex-X1. Apparently, the Cortex-X3 won't be any better either.

According to word supposedly coming from Taiwan, the Cortex-X3 is set to be even less efficient than the Cortex-X2. Going by the rumor, the Cortex-X3 is said to offer a slim performance boost over the Cortex-X2, but will be 10% less efficient when clocked at 3.0 GHz or higher. While raw CPU performance won't be groundbreaking, AI performance is said to see a 100% increase versus the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1..

The post offers a few other tidbits. For one, these numbers are based on Samsung and TSMC's next-gen nodes. Also, Qualcomm is said to be working on its own in-house custom cores to replace ARM's Cortex-X cores, after making the switch from the semi-custom cores on the Snapdragon 855 and Snapdragon 865. Reputedly, an actual return won't be until 2024, hypothetically on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. MediaTek, on the other hand, has no such plans due to associated development costs. While the report says nothing about Samsung, the Korean company only just dissolved its Mongoose-series team in 2019, so a return to in-house cores doesn't look likely.

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