Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is here for 2023 Android flagships! Extra performance core, more efficiency

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is here and for the flagship Android phones of 2022, it promises to bring a lot of performance and efficiency upgrades over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The chip is fabricated on the same 4nm node as the Apple A16 Bionic, and hence, these two chips are likely to have comparable performance. Qualcomm, however, has gone for a different chip architecture this year to amp up the raw performance of the chip. On paper, performance has improved on all fronts.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is here for Android phones

Even though Qualcomm lays all its focus on power efficiency, the chip offers notable performance upgrades. The new Kryo CPU used here promises up to 35 percent higher performance and 40 percent better power efficiency. There’s a new Cortex-X3 based Kryo Prime core that runs at 3.2GHz, accompanied by four performance cores clocked at 2.8GHz. Yes, 5 performance cores in total. The efficiency cores are reduced to just three, but clocked at 2GHz.

Then there's the GPU that premises 25 percent improved performance and 45 percent better power efficiency. Similar to the Dimensity 9200, it supports hardware accelerated ray tracing. The chip also supports up to LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage format. Hence, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones are expected to offer much faster read/write speeds.

Other highlights include support for the QHD+ display up to 144Hz or 4K display at 60Hz, and AV1 video decoding is also supported now. When it comes to the cameras, the chip is optimised to work with Sony DOL-HDR sensors and Samsung’s new 200MP HP3 sensor. The 108MP camera sensor will also have zero shutter lag. Phones can als record up to 8K HDR video and 30 fps, 4K at 120fps, and Dolby Vision recording.

As for connectivity, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 uses a new Snapdragon X70 modem that can achieve peak 5G download speeds of 10GBps and peak upload speeds of 3.5GBps. It also supports Dual SIM Dual Active mode for two 5G SIM cards together. There’s Wi-Fi 7 that increases top speeds up to 5.8GBps on supported networks. There’s Bluetooth 5.3 for local connectivity as well. The USB ports will support USB 3.1 standards once again and they will support Quick Charge 5 fast charging standard.

As of now, Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will find home in flagship phones from Asus ROG, Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, Oppo, Red Magic, Sharp, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, Meizu and ZTE.