After presenting the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm released a list of scores obtained by the platform with the best-known benchmarks. The SoC obtains rave scores, with an increase of 15% to 30% compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. But Qualcomm does not specify the conditions of the tests and did not entrust terminals to journalists to carry out their tests. We’ll explain why this bothers us.
The Snapdragon Summit is now over. We followed it for you with great interest. Firstly because Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon Then because Qualcomm presented the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a SoC for smartphones capable of running generative AI such as Llama 2 from Meta or Stable Diffusion (which allows you to generate or modify a photo). A bit like Bard in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
Read also – Smartphones as powerful as laptops? Qualcomm promises it for 2024
Like every year, we took particular interest in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, because the SoC will power a large part of the high-end smartphones that will be announced between fall 2023 and summer 2024. Three of them are already official. First the Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro which were announced in China during the Snapdragon Summit. Then the Magic6 from Honor (which will certainly also be accompanied by a Pro version). This has not yet been the subject of a complete presentation. But it won’t be long now that George Zhao has praised it.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is announced as a power monster
This year, the real novelty of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is obviously the support for generative models without help from the cloud. This not only brings responsiveness to content generation, but also a reduction in energy consumption. However, Qualcomm also promises an increase in the computing capacity of the SoC compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. We have published some percentages in our dedicated article. But it is time to make some numerical comparisons.
Here are some scores obtained by Qualcomm’s benchmark platform: 2320 points on Geekbench 6 in single-core and 7439 points in multi-core; 2.13 million points on AnTuTu v10 ; 21100 points on PCMark; 114 frames per second on 3DMark WildLife or 32 frames per second on Solar Bay, the latest 3DMark test dedicated to Ray Tracing. In comparison, platforms running Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 can reach 2050 points on Geekbench in single-core and 5700 points in multi-core, or even 1.5 million points on AnTuTu v10. The difference is clear. And the power is very impressive.
Of course, these results depend on the reference platform configuration. Here are the main elements:
- AMOLED screen Full HD+ 6.65 inches, refresh rate at 144Hz
- Battery 4192mAh
- 24 GB of RAM in format LPDDR5X and clocked at 4.8 GHz
- 512 GB of storage format UFS 4.0
- Android 14 installed
We want to take a step back from these results. For what ? Because they were entirely provided by Qualcomm. Unlike the Snapdragon Summit in 2022, during the 2023 edition we were not able to carry out our own benchmarks with the reference platform that produced these results. And that changes our view of these results. For two reasons.
What are the benchmark conditions for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3?
First of all, chipset performance depends on load of the battery: the more it is charged, the more the SoC has the possibility of using its power. None of the tests presented here display the remaining battery percentage or, at a minimum, the battery icon in the upper left corner. The only test that displays battery charge is 3D Mark Solar Bay. And the load decreased by less than 1% with each attempt. Without being able to confirm the battery charge, it is impossible to determine whether these results are legitimate.
Second reason, we do not know the environmental conditions in which the tests were carried out. In a warmer room, the smartphone heats up more quickly. And performance is limited by safety devices against overheating. Conversely, if the room is cold, performance is no longer restricted. Some tests still display the temperature of the phone, giving us a certain idea of the propensity of the SoC to heat up:
- AnTuTu: 42°C
- 3D Mark: 39°C
- PC Mark: between 25°C and 30°C
Let’s also remember that the temperature measured by the benchmarks only concerns a small part of the phone. This is often the CPU (or part of the CPU), but not systematically. It’s difficult, without having the phone in hand, to measure the impact of heat on the user experience. An experience that will also vary depending on the design of the phone (notably the heatsinks) and the configuration. As saying that these figures tell us about the potential of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but not on its behavior in a commercial smartphone. This was also true before, of course. But it’s more so this year. Fortunately, some terminals will quickly arrive to check the trends brought by Qualcomm.