Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones: a review of Qualcomm's AI chipset
Our Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones list has been updated and so has our review of this AI chipset as we continue to test it in more Android smartphones
Update: We’ve tested several Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones in the US, and it’s an AI stunner, as outlined in our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review. We explore the Gen 3 phones list, specs, and benchmarks below.
As of July 2024, I’ve tested several Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones to fully experience Qualcomm's latest chipset's new AI and gaming capabilities. It’s a significant upgrade.
The first devices launched in the US were the Galaxy S24 phones – technically, the specs listed the chipset as ‘Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy’, but the core specs don’t differ from other Gen 3 phones I’ve tested, including the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro. I’m currently writing my Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 review and Galaxy Flip 6 review.
The new Moto Razr+ 2024 was the only phone were the benchmarks came back with slightly different benchmarking numbers, and that’s because it uses a lesser variant called the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.
Important Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 stats
With the promise of 30% faster performance, 20% more power efficiency in the CPU, and 98% faster AI performance, Gen 3 has become an important update for Qualcomm and its device partners that so far include Samsung, Asus, OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, Realme, ZTE, Vivo and Honor. Most new smartphones in 2024 will lean in on running complex AI tasks in some way, while offering better year-over-year battery performance, even with an unchanged battery capacity.
The list of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones is continuing to emerge, as more smartphones get announced as the year goes on. Here are the phones that contain the 4nm chipset – and a few we expect to see later in 2024.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones
The Xiaomi 14 was the first device added to our Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones list, and there are now 16 different phones with the chipset on sale worldwide. In the US, there are six phones readily on sale with the Gen 3, as Chinese phone manufacturers don’t have as many inroads into the US market as Samsung, OnePlus and Asus.
Note: the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra contains the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the US and globally, as does the Galaxy S24 Plus and S24 in the US. But outside of the United States, the two non-Ultra Galaxy phones use Samsung Exynos 2400 chipset. Samsung claims that its latest Exynos chipset is comparable to Qualcomm’s flagship Gen 3 chip, but benchmark tests say otherwise (and they have year after year).
Samsung Galaxy S24
Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6
Motorola Razr+ (Snapdragon 8s Gen 3)
OnePlus 12
OnePlus 12R
Asus ROG Phone 8
Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro
Xiaomi 14
Xiaomi 14 Ultra
Oppo Find X7 Ultra
Honor Magic 6
Honor Magic 6 Pro
Realme GT 5 Pro
Vivo iQOO 12
Vivo iQOO 12 Pro
ZTE Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro
ZTE Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro Plus
ZTE Nubia Z60 Ultra
Rumored Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones
Oppo Find N4 Flip
With the sequels to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 foldable phones launching this week, almost all smartphones that had last year’s Snapdragon Gen 2 have been refreshed to contain the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Google has switched its Pixel phones to its Tensor G series of chipsets (the Tensor G3 is in the Google Pixel 8 Pro, for example), while Apple has always made its own ARM-based iPhone chipsets. The A18 Pro SoC should launch inside of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max in September 2024. Also, don’t look for Qualcomm inside the new Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch Ultra. Samsung opted for its own wearable-focused Exynos chipsets.
There are an increasing number of manufacturers who are opting for Qualcomm's rival MediaTek and its new flagship chipset, the all-big-core Dimensity 9300. The Shortcut got a chance to see a few Dimensity 9300 phones in action and we will have a separate report on our findings and how it compares to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 specs
Inside each phone supported by this flagship Qualcomm chipset is the tiny, but powerful 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 System on a Chip.
It includes an eight-core CPU that has 30% faster performance and is 20% more power efficient than Gen 2. It’s made up of one prime core, five performance cores and two efficiency cores.
CPU specs
30% faster performance
20% more power efficient
1x 3.3GHz Prime cores
3x 3.2GHz Performance cores
2x 3.2GHz Performance cores
2x 2.3GHz Efficiency cores
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s visual subsystem features an all-new Adreno GPU. It’s 25% faster at graphics rendering and 25% more power efficient. This combo makes it possible to output real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing with global illumination and supports Unreal Engine 5 Lumen Global Illumination, according to Qualcomm.
GPU specs
25% faster at graphics rendering
25% more power efficient
Real-time Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing with Global Illumination
Support for Unreal Engine 5 Lumen Global Illumination and Reflections System
Snapdragon Game Super Resolution
Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0
Snapdragon Game Post Processing Accelerator
HDR gaming (10-bit color depth, Rec. 2020 color gamut)
Snapdragon Shadow Denoiser
API support: OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 FP, Vulkan 1.3
Hardware-accelerated H.265, VP9, AV1 decoder
HDR Playback Codec support for HDR10+, HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision
Qualcomm’s AI engine and NPU sensing hub are dedicated to running complex tasks on-device. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is 98% faster at AI tasks, outputs 40% more performance per watt and supports multi-modal generative AI models, including large language models (LLM), language vision models (LVM), and transformer network-based automatic speech recognition (ASR). This is the biggest specs uplift we saw in our in-depth Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs the S23 Ultra comparison.
AI and NPU specs
98% faster at AI tasks
40% more performance per watt
Qualcomm AI Engine
Qualcomm Hexagon NPU
Fused AI accelerator architecture
Hexagon scalar, vector, and tensor accelerators
Hexagon Direct Link
Upgraded Micro Tile Inferencing
Upgraded power delivery system
Support for mix precision (INT8+INT16)
Support for all precisions (INT4, INT8, INT16, FP16)
Qualcomm Sensing Hub
Dual micro NPUs for audio and sensors
Dual Always-Sensing ISPs to support two concurrent Always-Sensing Cameras
Support for INT4 precision
Camera (ISP specs)
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 camera prowess (controlled by the ISP) offers capabilities of 200MP photos and 8K 30fps video, something we currently see the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra take advantage of in spades.
Qualcomm Spectra Image Signal Processor
Cognitive ISP, Triple 18-bit ISPs
Real-time Semantic Segmentation photo and video processing (up to 12 layers)
Engine for Visual Analytics 4.0, including hardware acceleration for iToF depth sensors up to 1080p30
Support for DCG HDR image sensors
Support for Staggered HDR image sensors
Support for QDOL HDR image sensors
Support for Less Blanking HDR image sensors
Support for Multi-Frame HDR image sensors
Support for triple video capture from HDR image sensors, with seamless switching between any HDR mode
Up to 36 MP triple camera @ 30 FPS with Zero Shutter Lag
Up to 64+36 MP dual camera @ 30 FPS with Zero Shutter Lag
Up to 108 MP single camera @ 30 FPS with Zero Shutter Lag
Up to 200 megapixel photo capture
AI-based face detection, AI for 3A (auto-focus, autoexposure, and auto-white balance)
Rec. 2020 color gamut photo and video capture
Up to 10-bit color depth photo and video capture
8K HDR video capture + 64 MP photo capture
10-bit HEIF: HEIC photo capture, HEVC video capture
Google Ultra HDR photo capture
Video capture HDR formats: HDR10+, HDR10, HLG,Dolby Vision,
8K HDR video capture @ 30 FPS
4K video capture @ 120 FPS
Slow-mo video capture at 720p @ 960 FPS
Bokeh Engine 2 for video capture
Pro Sight video capture
Night Vision video capture with RAW AI Noise Reduction in 4K 60 FPS
Computational HDR video capture: Up to 4 exposures (with QDOL image sensors)
Video super resolution
Multi-Frame Noise Reduction (MFNR)
Locally Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering
Truepic photo capture with C2PA-compliant certificate authority
Charging specs
When it comes to charging, Qualcomm’s charging standard which has been around for a few years is still a part of its latest chipset. Fast charging across various devices has gotten less complicated in the last three years.
Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 technology
Memory specs
Memory and storage supported by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 go beyond what most manufacturers will put into a smartphone. For example, the S24 Ultra tops out at 12GB of RAM, far from the 24GB limit of this chipset. Only the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro maxes things out with 24GB of RAM, and that’s because it’s a gaming phone.
Support for LP-DDR5x memory, up to 4800 MHz
Memory density: Up to 24GB
Display specs
Display specs for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip top out at 4K60Hz and QHD+114Hz on device, although a higher resolution and refresh rate is possible through an external display. More and more gamers are turning to mobile, as USB-C connectivity, Backbone One game controllers and high quality games have made it easier than ever to indulge in console-quality mobile gaming.
On-Device Display Support:
4K @ 60 Hz
QHD+ @ 144 Hz
Maximum External Display Support:
Up to 8K @ 30 Hz
Up to 1080 @ 240 Hz
Variable Refresh Rate support for 240 Hz to 1 Hz
10-bit color depth, Rec. 2020 color gamut
HDR10, HDR10+, HDR vivid, and Dolby Vision
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 review
We’ve finally got to put these specs to the test by running benchmarks and several 3D games on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-equipped Galaxy S24 Ultra. The results for eager mobile gamers are positive, but I caution everyone that we’re still waiting to see more console-quality games on the Google Play Store. It’s one of the reasons why our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review score was 4.5 out of 5 instead of a perfect 5.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 gaming performance
I was able to pressure-test the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 using Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG at their maximum frame rates on the S24 Ultra without a noticeable drop from 120fps and 90fps respectively. Genshin Impact is still capped at 60fps by the developer, but even so, the frames kept churning even when the hack-and-slash gameplay got thick.
Importantly, the thermals on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 didn’t overheat the Galaxy S24 Ultra, as we experienced on our iPhone 15 Pro Max review at launch (Apple quickly fixed its overheating iPhone issue through a software update). The Samsung’s glass back and titanium frame got warm, but not too hot to touch.
Games that support ray-tracing – one of the key features of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – are difficult to find on the Android operating system. Of the four games hyped at Samsung’s Unpacked event, I was able to find two available with the other two still in development: Diablo Immortal, Arena Breakout, Night Crows (coming soon) and Racing Master (coming soon). There are a few others like CarX Street, Bright Memory Mobile and War Thunder Edge out there that have been updated with ray tracing.
That’s not the best lineup compared to Apple’s console-quality games lineup that has come to the iPhone 15 Pro series (some with ray-tracing and some without). Big-name titles like Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village and Death Stranding have launched as full mobile games on top-end iPhone, iPad and Macs. So Qualcomm, Samsung and Google need to band together to get more developers – ones that are household names – to bring PS5 and Xbox games to the Google Play Store.
You can, of course, stream Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus free games to your Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-running mobile device, and we found that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra was more than powerful enough to handle the task. After all, upon finally finding a PlayStation Portal restock, teardown experts have found that the streaming-only handheld from Sony runs a Qualcomm 415 processor. So if that dated chipset can do it, the Gen 3 is certainly up to the task, too.
Qualcomm chip (or something similar) could appear in the PSP 2 handheld specs list in 2025. Sony is reportedly working on a new portable console that plays the best PS5 games natively offline, though it may be working with long-time partner AMD, which powers many PC gaming handhelds, including the new Asus ROG Ally X.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 benchmarks
While real-life scenarios remain best when judging a new smartphone chipset, I do appreciate seeing lab-tested scores every year using Geekbench. According to the results from Geekbench 6, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset has a CPU single-core score of 2,205 and a multi-core score of 6,757.
That’s a nice improvement, as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 couldn’t surpass 2,000 on the single-core and averaged 5,200 on the multi-core. That said, the best CPU results come from Qualcomm’s System on a Chip rival, Apple, which bests the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 performance with the iPhone 15 Pro A17 Pro SoC: 2,902 single-core and 7,180 multi-core. Even Apple’s last-gen A16 Bionic chip scored 2,500 in the single-core (the multi-core score lagged behind Qualcomm’s 6,757 with 6,500).
Don’t worry. While Qualcomm made positive gains but remains in Apple’s shadow, it comes back with better battery efficiency later in this Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 review.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 rumors
There are rumors the next-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip will be Qualcomm’s chance to catch up to Apple. The “first-ever benchmark” is unconfirmed, but shows a multi-core score of 10,628 and a single-core score of 2,845. Qualcomm is expected to switch to a 3nm TSMC chipset for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. That’s going to be a big improvement, though, by the time it launches in late 2024 (and arrives in a phone in US phones in early 2025), we’ll have Apple’s A18 Pro chip inside the iPhone 16 Pro.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 AI features
There’s better news when it comes to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 AI and efficiency. The on-device and cloud-based generative AI tasks that the S24 Ultra can handle are truly impressive. Live translations on phone calls or via text, custom wallpaper with a few prompts on the fly, and reshaping photos using generative AI allow the users to sit back while the chipset and internet connection do the heavy lifting. Only some of these tasks on the Samsung phone are truly on-device.
What’s baffling some reviewers is the fact that Samsung launched AI features on its older devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. How can this be possible without the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3?
The truth is, you may not need Qualcomm’s new chip for some of these AI tasks, but my read on this is that it’ll be wholly faster and more power efficient when pairing AI tasks with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Samsung’s forthcoming AI update won’t hobble older phones if they have at least 16GB of RAM, but it’s unlikely to run at the same pace as the S24 Ultra when tasking AI with complex tasks.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 power efficiency
When it comes to power efficiency, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 does even better. We hardly had to charge our phones during the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review period. Despite the 5,000mAh battery capacity that hasn’t changed since the S20 Ultra, we experienced the longest-lasting Galaxy S battery to date. This translates into more than a day of battery life, even if you’re a power user.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 outlook
Performance with better battery life is more important than ever when buying a phone in 2024 – not always for today, but for several years from now.
More smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung, are promising seven years of Android updates. People are either holding onto their phones longer or seeking lucrative phone trade-in deals. In other words, leaps in processing power for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 today will go a long way in the new decade in the future, as these phones will see upgraded software until 2031 and remain useful beyond that year.
The list of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones will grow larger – especially by the time the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Fold 6 launch, likely in July 2024 – and your options between phones with this chipset and its competitors (expected to be Google’s next Tensor G3 and Apple’s A18 Pro chipset) will become clearer. Right now, Qualcomm has made a fully capable and power-efficient chipset, with software makers needing to pick up the slack on the gaming front to use the chip’s power to its full potential.
Next article for gamers: our Razer Iskur V2 hands-on review
May I ask about the Redmi Xiaomi Turbo 3, as I searched about it the phone already has the latest chipset, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, is it true?