Qualcomm officially launched the Snapdragon 8s Gen3, its latest chipset that offers all the trappings of its current 8 Gen3 flagship but at a more affordable price. In terms of position, the new chipset sits between the last-gen 8 Gen2 and the 8 Gen3.
Specs-wise, the 8s Gen3 is based on the same TSMC 4nm process node and while it still uses the same 1+3+4 configuration, it is a little different in its core distribution and frequencies. First, the prime Cortex-X4 runs at 3GHz, four big Cortex-A720 cores running at 2.8GHz, and three small Cortex-A520 cores running at 2.0GHz. Additionally, the chipset has an Adreno 735 GPU and supports up to 24GB LPDDR5 running at 4,200MHz, which is the same as the Snapdragon 8 Gen2.
Other supported specifications included UFS 4.0, USB 3.1 Gen2, an X70 5G Modem, and a triple 18-bit ISP and support for recording 4K HDR video at 60 fps and Full HD videos at 240 fps. More to the point, the 8s Gen3 also comes with onboard Generative AI capabilities, courtesy of a Hexagon NPU, and supports a broad array of large language models (LLM), including Baichuan-7B, Llama 2, Gemini Nano, and Zhipu ChatGLM. On the photography side of things, the combination of the 18-bit ISP and NPU means that phones equipped with the chipset should enable it to deliver near-flagship camera images. Technically speaking, it could support three 36MP cameras at 30 fps with Zero Shutter Lag, or a single 108MP sensor at the same framerate.
Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 8s Gen3 will be adopted by key OEMs, including Honor, IQOO, realme, Redmi, and Xiaomi, with the first devices to be announced sometime this month.
(Source: Qualcomm)
