Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the benchmark: Qualcomm posts its strong results

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is expected to make its way to premier smartphones in the coming weeks with more CPU and GPU performance, including the Xiaomi 14, which will be introduced on October 26. In line with this, Qualcomm has released a series of Snapdragon Summit benchmark results that provide a preview of performance.

Qualcomm itself talks about up to 30 percent higher CPU performance for multi-core applications, up to 25 percent higher graphics performance overall and up to 50 percent higher performance specifically for ray tracing. This information is intended to be supported by the results of benchmarks implemented by the manufacturer itself.

QRD with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 24GB LPDDR5X-9600

Snapdragon Summit participants can usually perform benchmarks themselves on QRD (Qualcomm’s reference design), but this year’s benchmarks during the additional track of the internal exhibition are dedicated only to Snapdragon. Qualcomm has implemented benchmarks on its QRD with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, 24GB LPDDR5X-9600, and 512GB UFS 4.0.

The editorial team compares Qualcomm’s results with the previous “Galaxy phone” Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (test), the A17 Pro of the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max (test) and the Tensor G3 of the Pixel 8 Pro (test) opposite.

Multi-core CPU performance is right ahead of Apple

In Geekbench 6.1, Qualcomm narrowly beats Apple in terms of multi-core performance and finishes 3 percent ahead of the A17 Pro. With fewer E cores, an additional P core, generally higher clock speeds, and overall improvements to Arm’s current generation Cortex, it beats the previous Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 by about 50 percent. The single-core crown remains with Apple, with Qualcomm’s latest chip 20 percent behind the A17 Pro. However, the lead over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is 24 percent. In PCMark, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 performed 31 percent better, and in the JetStream 2.1 browser benchmark it performed 34 percent better, with Apple ahead by another 43 percent.

Again faster GPU

Qualcomm’s claim of a 50 percent increase in ray tracing performance is true in 3DMark Solar Bay: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 runs the benchmark 57 percent faster. With this result, Qualcomm also has a 43 percent lead over Apple. The internal advantage in 3DMark Wild Life (Extreme) is 47 and 45 percent, while the Apple A17 Pro is 23 and 37 percent behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the same test. A similar image appears in GFXBench Aztec Ruins and Qualcomm’s new Adreno GPU is clearly at the top of the comparison.

Xiaomi 14 is based on Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Qualcomm can already boast commitments to Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 at this year’s Snapdragon Summit from Asus, Honor, iQoo, Meizu, Nio, Nubia, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE. From these manufacturers, Xiaomi wants to introduce the Xiaomi 14 series with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 on October 26 from 7 PM China time. As for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, this feature and a short teaser of the smartphone were confirmed by Xiaomi president William Lu.

ComputerBase received information about this item from Qualcomm at an event held by the manufacturer in Maui under a non-disclosure agreement. The company borne the costs of arrival and departure and four nights at the hotel. The manufacturer had no influence or obligation to report.