Qualcomm will remain on TSMC’s 4nm process for this year when announcing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and thanks to shifting from the N4 node to N4P, which touts slightly better efficiency, the San Diego firm will be able to use more performance cores this time. Additionally, a new rumor alleges that the next flagship SoC from Qualcomm will have its Cortex-X4 super core running at a higher frequency than Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s Cortex-X3.

Cortex-X4 belonging to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 could run at 3.70GHz, but no confirmation if this configuration will belong to the upgraded SoC

The ‘official’ model number of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is SM8650, and according to MyDrivers, who cited Weibo tipster @Digital Chat, the CPU cluster of the flagship SoC will be ‘1 + 5 + 2.’ Earlier, a rumor was doing the rounds, stating that Qualcomm was testing another version with a ‘2 + 4 + 2’ configuration, but the company may not have been impressed with its efficiency as it features two Cortex-X4 cores instead of one.

Despite previous claims talking about the Cortex-X4 running at 3.40GHz, the newest update mentions the super core operating at 3.70GHz, making it 15 percent higher than the Cortex-X3’s 3.20GHz speed. The remaining five performance cores are expected to be separated by two Hunter ‘titanium’ cores and three Hunter ‘gold’ cores, likely functioning at different clock speeds. The exact frequencies are unknown at this point, but these will probably be running lower than the Cortex-X4’s rumored speeds.

Though Apple is expected to maintain its edge against the competition as its A17 Bionic will reportedly be mass produced on the 3nm process, it is impressive how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s CPU cluster can run at higher clock speeds just by shifting to an improved 4nm iteration. This may be one reason why Qualcomm skipped giving TSMC 3nm chip orders and is reported to jump straight to the N3E process, just like MediaTek.

At this time, it is unknown if the 3.70GHz clock speed upgrade of the Cortex-X4 will only be exclusive to the Galaxy S24 or if Qualcomm aims to make this a standard configuration of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It appears that we will find out soon and update our readers accordingly.

News Source: MyDrivers