Samsung Galaxy S23 series' Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC packs a marginally faster Cortex-X3 CPU core and Adreno GPU

Although Qualcomm officially launched the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 a few days ago, the announcement left out some important details. Multiple Geekbench listings have confirmed there are two variants of the SoC, one with its Cortex-X3 core clocked at 3.36 GHz and the other at 3.2 GHz. The latter seems to be exclusive to the Galaxy S23 series, whereas the former has been spotted alongside two devices, the Vivo X90 Pro+ and the iQOO 11 Pro.

Ice Universe points out that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powering the Galaxy S23 series will also feature a faster Adreno 740 GPU clocked at 719 MHz compared to the 680 MHz unit on the regular variant. These should give the Galaxy S23 a not-so-insignificant edge over its competitors, even the ones that run the same chip. While the MediaTek Dimensity 9200 is no slouch, initial benchmarks suggested it still lagged behind the Qualcomm behemoth.

A Twitter exchange between XDA Developers' Adam Conway and developer Kuba Wojciechowski sheds some more light on the confusing Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 situation. The official Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is codenamed SM8550-AB. Qualcomm isn't one to add the "-AB" tag to its first-gen products, indicating that it is a revision. Ice Universe adds the Galaxy S23's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 version could be codenamed SM8550-AC.

That said, the "AC" tag is usually reserved for the mid-cycle refresh "Plus" versions, so the chip Ice Universe is referring to could be the "original" SM8550 and the -AB revision could be an afterthought to add 32-bit app support. Then again, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the first of its kind in many regards, so the regular naming convention might not be applicable here.

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