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Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
The OnePlus 12 comes with Qualcomm's new <anchor>Snapdragon 8 Gen 3</anchor>, which is an excellent silicon that performs well and gets through all the tasks without a hitch. It also sports a new LTPO AMOLED panel that's slightly bigger and can get significantly brighter than the one on the OnePlus 11. The new panel is also protected with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 as opposed to the regular Gorilla Glass Victus. The base variant of the OnePlus 12 also starts with 256GB storage instead of 128GB, and you also get an improved Periscope lens on the new flagship.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 review: I finally don't feel the need to upgrade
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# Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 review: I finally don't feel the need to upgrade

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Updated Apr 29, 2024

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We saw the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 unveiled at the company's tech summit in Hawaii just last October, and it packs some upgraded specs and a large focus on AI going forward. With that, though, there are some big improvements in computational capabilities, with a focus on CPU and GPU improvements that did manage to impress me. Weirdly enough, though, this was the first year in a long time that the predecessor still feels like enough performance for basically anyone.

With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 having been around for a long time, my suspicions were very much confirmed. Even now, with devices from Samsung and OnePlus (to name a few) hitting the mainstream, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 still far surpasses the needs of most people.

##### Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy breakdown: What's different?

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy powers the Galaxy S24 series in the U.S. and the S24 Ultra globally, but what's different?

ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro in hand showing 3DMark scores

About this review : I reviewed the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro. I enabled X-Mode to remove any software limitations that may be present and I ran all tests without using the AeroActive X Cooler to simulate real device usage. Asus nor Qualcomm had any input into the contents of this review.

## Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Specifications

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (SM8650)

CPU

- 1x Kryo (ARM Cortex X4-based) Prime core @ 3.3GHz
- 3x Kryo (ARM Cortex A720-based) Performance cores @ 3.2GHz
- 2x Kryo (ARM Cortex A720-based) Performance cores @ 3.0GHz
- 2x Kryo (ARM Cortex A520-based) Efficiency cores @ 2.3GHz
- ARM Cortex v9
- 12MB L3 cache
- 30% faster performance
- 20% more power-efficient

GPU

- New Adreno
- Vulkan 1.3
- Snapdragon Elite Gaming
- Snapdragon Shadow Denoiser
- Adreno Frame Motion Engine
- Video playback: H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC), VP8, VP9, 4K HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, AV1
- 25% faster graphics rendering
- 25% more power-efficient

Display

- Maximum On-Device Display Support: 4K @ 60Hz/QHD+ @ 144Hz
- Maximum External Display Support: 4K @ 60Hz
  - 10-bit color
  - HDR10, HDR10+, HDR vivid, Dolby Vision

AI

- Hexagon DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtensions, Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, Hexagon Scalar Accelerator, Hexagon Direct Link
- AI Engine
- Qualcomm Sensing Hub
  - Dual micro NPUs for audio and sensors
  - Dual always-sensing ISPs
  - INT4 precision
- 98% faster AI performance
- 40% performance per watt improvement

Memory

LPDDR5X @ 4800MHz, 24GB

ISP

- Triple 18-bit Spectra ISP
- Up to 200MP photo capture
- Single camera: Up to 108MP with ZSL @ 30 FPS
- Dual camera: Up to 64+36MP with ZSL @ 30 FPS
- Triple camera: Up to 36 MP with ZSL @ 30 FPS
- Video capture: 8K HDR @ 30 fps; Slow motion up to 720p@960 fps; HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision, HEVC

Modem

- Snapdragon X75 5G Modem
- Downlink: 10Gbps
- Uplink: 3.5Gbps
- Modes: G NR, NR-DC, EN-DC, LTE, CBRS, WCDMA, HSPA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1x, EV-DO, GSM/EDGE
- mmWave: 8 carriers, 2x2 MIMO
- sub-6 GHz: 4x4 MIMO

Charging

Qualcomm Quick Charge 5

Connectivity

- Location: Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, Dual Frequency GNSS support
- Wi-Fi: Qualcomm FastConnect 7800; Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6; 2.4/5GHz/6GHz
- Bands; 20/40/80/160 MHz Channels; DBS (2x2 + 2x2), TWT, WPA3, 8×8 MU-MIMO
- Bluetooth: Version 5.4, aptX Voice, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, and LE audio

Manufacturing Process

4nm TSMC N4P

## Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 benchmarks overview

- Geekbench: A CPU-centric test that uses several computational workloads, including encryption, compression (text and images), rendering, physics simulations, computer vision, ray tracing, speech recognition, and convolutional neural network inference on images. The score breakdown gives specific metrics. The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations, placing a large emphasis on integer performance (65%), then float performance (30%), and finally, cryptography (5%). We used both Geekbench 5 and Geekbench 6 for these tests.
- 3DMark: This is a cross-platform benchmarking tool that is utilized to compare the performance of any device in relation to the others. While mainly focused on evaluating the 3D graphics rendering performance, it can be used to compare the performance of several devices with each other under compute workloads. For testing the 3D graphics rendering performance, there are many tests to do so in 3DMark. However, the most popular tests in this category are the WildLife and WildLife Extreme tests.
- CPU Throttling Test: This app repeats a simple multithreaded test in C for as short as 15 minutes, though we ran it for 30 minutes. The app charts the score over time so you can see when the phone starts throttling. The score is measured in GIPS — or a billion operations per second.
- Burnout Benchmark: Loads different SoC components with heavy workloads to analyze their power consumption, thermal throttling, and maximum performance. It uses Android’s BatteryManager API to calculate the watts used during testing, which can be used to understand the battery drain on a smartphone.

## Power efficiency

### A huge amount of power drawn

Burnout Benchmark allows us to easily measure the power consumed by a chipset in a smartphone. The following tests are run on different components of the SoC as part of the Burnout Benchmark.

- GPU: Parallel vision-based computations using OpenCL
- CPU: Multi-threaded computations largely involving Arm Neon instructions
- NPU: AI models with typical machine learning ops

First and foremost, here are the power metrics that we collected.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 wattage over time during Burnout Benchmark test

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 consumes a lot of power when under load, but that's not necessarily the full picture. If it draws more power but also gives better results, then that's still a good sign.

8-Gen-3-CPU-1

8-Gen-3-GPU-1

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Overall, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is a powerful performer that manages to surpass the capabilities of the last generation significantly when it comes to CPU performance. We'll see this later on as well as we delve into more tests, but Qualcomm has managed to make a particularly powerful chipset this time around.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Percentage change (from 8 Gen 2 to 8 Gen 3)

CPU FPS (peak)

19.22

26.75

39% increase

GPU FPS (peak)

27.47

33.48

22% increase

Wattage (peak)

13.67W

17.37W

27% increase

Observing the above table, you'll find that the CPU jump when compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is extraordinarily large. However, this roughly adds up to what we expect. Qualcomm touted 30% improvements to CPU performance and 25% improvements to GPU performance, so this is more or less within that ballpark.

The highest increased wattage checks out when compared to the CPU and GPU gains, and because the last steps on a frequency curve are the most expensive in energy consumption, it's expected that this will result in better efficiency at lower clock speeds.

## Computational workload

### Big jumps in performance

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 score in Geekbenhc 6 compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

As expected, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 scores better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and by a significant margin. We're seeing large leaps across the board in CPU performance, and what's even more astonishing is that these results are actually a little lower than what Qualcomm shared at this year's tech summit. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 one can expect roughly 25% better CPU performance, according to Geekbench, in multithreaded use cases.

## Graphics

### Another win for Adreno

3DMark Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 on the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro

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The Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro here manages a peak score of 5210 in 3DMark's Wild Life Extreme stress test, a fantastic scoreline. For reference, last generation would be more likely to sit around the 3700 mark in terms of scoring, which the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 here handily surpasses.

## CPU Throttling Test

### Long-term performance

CPU Throttling Test on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 showing a peak speed of 405 GIPS

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CPU Throttling Test is a test that can show the performance over time of an SoC in a phone in computation, but it's greatly reliant on the cooling capabilities of the device that it's in. The Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro is clearly capable of keeping this SoC cool enough to run at a very high speed for the duration of the test, but there's no guarantee other devices will be able to as well. The phone got very hot to the touch, and competing OEMs may look to stave off that heat quicker.

For devices from OnePlus and Samsung that have this chip, like the Samsung Galaxy S24 series and the OnePlus 12, we recommend putting on the "light" battery mode option. This tends to cut the last few jumps off the frequency table and results in much-improved battery life at little to no cost to performance. That will likely help a lot here.

##### Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review: The most feature-packed, do-it-all phone in the world

The Galaxy S24 Ultra's new AI features along with (slightly) improved camera system and build make for the most maximal, do-it-all phone

## The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is a great iteration with some big CPU gains

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro in hand, showing the About Phone screen

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 makes some massive CPU gains across the board, especially in a phone designed to make the most of it. The results in Geekbench actually scored below Qualcomm's reference device a tad though, so I suspect that the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro isn't necessarily getting any kind of crazy performance out of it that you wouldn't get on another device. When we tested the Dimensity 9000+ in the Asus ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, they had overclocked the middle cores, but there isn't any crazy like that going on here.

What's especially interesting though is that I don't feel any compelling need to upgrade this year to a phone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The Z Fold 5 is my daily driver and is one of the best phones around, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 doesn't really bring much else to the table that you can't get already. If you're pushing this SoC to its limits, it can be significantly faster, but it will drain more power and be less efficient than its predecessor, I doubt most people are doing that. Therefore, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 makes a lot of sense for most people.

If you want the best of the best, then the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is still probably one of the ones to go for. It powers devices from the likes of Samsung and OnePlus, and those are some of the best smartphones around these days.

##### Best phones in 2024

Want a new smartphone and are overwhelmed with options? Here's our expert guide on the best smartphone for you.

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