Qualcomm simply launched a brand new chipset that’s designed to sit down just under its present flagship when it comes to capabilities and worth. The Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 goals to convey a lot of the 8 Gen 3’s options — together with help for on-device generative AI fashions — to extra inexpensive telephones. It represents a brand new tier for the top-of-the-line 8-series chips, and it’s additionally somewhat bit complicated.
Earlier than we get into all that, let’s begin with the simple stuff: the 8S Gen 3 features a GPU just like the usual 8 Gen 3, although it has one much less efficiency core and runs at a decrease frequency — the prime core runs at as much as 3.0GHz versus 3.4GHz on the 8 Gen 3. The brand new 8S Gen 3 additionally makes use of a previous-gen modem, the X70 5G, which incorporates Wi-Fi 7 help. There’s additionally help for hardware-accelerated ray tracing so photorealistic video games run extra easily, which appears to be type of a benchmark of telephone flagship-iness today.
Naturally, there’s AI. The 8S Gen 3 helps multimodal generative AI on-device and may run massive language fashions of as much as 10 billion parameters — that features the likes of Llama 2 and Gemini Nano. It doesn’t supply the entire AI capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, nevertheless it does help gen AI digital assistants and picture growth.
The best way Qualcomm’s Deepu John, senior director of product administration, explains it, every Snapdragon high-level tier will be damaged down into three sub-categories. There are Snapdragon 8, 7, 6, and 4 sequence chipsets, and inside these, as much as three completely different choices. This “S” sequence chip sits just under the usual 8 Gen 3, and if Qualcomm ever releases an 8 Plus Gen 3, it could sit on high.
Obtained it? Nice, it will get much more complicated while you keep in mind that telephone producers are nonetheless utilizing 2022’s flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in not-quite flagship telephones just like the OnePlus 12R. There’s additionally the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 sitting just under the 8S Gen 3, although it has solely turned up in a handful of telephones. Qualcomm appears to be slicing the high-end telephone market awfully skinny, possibly in an try to maintain OEMs from turning to MediaTek for his or her less-than-flagship gadgets.
In any case, the 8S Gen 3 ought to begin showing available on the market quickly sufficient, although not in gadgets readily offered within the US. Honor, iQOO, Realme, Redmi, and Xiaomi have all mentioned that they’ll be utilizing the platform, with new gadgets anticipated “within the coming months.”