Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 specs, features and phones

Qualcomm tends to release a new version of its flagship mobile chipset towards the end of each year.

Assuming the American company continues with that theme, you can expect one before the end of 2024. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is good, but designed for slightly less powerful phones.

So, what will the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 bring to the table? Here’s everything we know so far, including some leaked specs and rumors about the first devices

When will the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 be launched?

Qualcomm tends to launch a new flagship chipset every year, so the 8 Gen 4 will most likely arrive before the end of 2024.

As for a more specific date, the leaker Digital Chat Station posted on Chinese social media site Weibo that it is scheduled for mass production in September 2024.

That would be earlier than in recent years, although Qualcomm appears to have adopted a rough eleven-month release cycle:

If the September launch month is true, this would be the earliest in a calendar year in which the Snapdragon Summit has taken place – assuming Qualcomm goes ahead with its launch events in Hawaii.

It will of course take some time before phones with the new chipset are actually available. Expect some high-profile launches in the 1-2 months after the announcement, although Samsung’s Galaxy S25 series flagships will likely be the first big players.

Which phones will use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4?

Of course, phones haven’t been confirmed to use Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. But the current 8 Gen 3 phones provide plenty of clues.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (plus S24 and S24+ outside Europe), Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro and OnePlus 12 were among the early adopters, so it’s likely that the next generations will switch to the newer Qualcomm chip.

However, almost all flagship smartphones not made by Apple or Google can qualify. Look forward to the successors to the Xiaomi 14, Honor Magic 6 series, Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, Oppo Find X7 UItra and Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra, but that is by no means an exhaustive list.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 will likely launch too early, while the OnePlus Open 2 will depend on how long the company wants to leave between generations.

As far as early adopters are concerned, leaker Yogesh Brar thinks Xiaomi is in pole position:

While the Xiaomi 15 and 15 Pro will likely arrive in China around the time of the 8 Gen 4’s launch, they likely won’t come to Europe until early 2025.

A similar story may apply to the OnePlus 13, while the iQOO is unlikely to make it to Europe.

What will be the specifications and features of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4?

We’re not entirely sure what to expect with the 8 Gen 4 chipset, but after a few leaks we think we have a pretty good understanding of a few key aspects.

TSMC’s 3nm process

Last year, Apple alone released a family of 3nm chipsets using TSMC’s latest 3nm ‘N3B’ node.

Unfortunately, companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek had to wait another year for cost reasons before they could use the ‘N3E’ process, another version of the earlier 3nm technology. However, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Dimensity 9300 were still powerful despite being built on TSMC’s N4P 4nm technology.

However, according to X leak Revegnus (tweet since deleted) and Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station, Qualcomm will once again rely solely on TSMC to make the 3nm-based ‘Sun’ chipset this year.

By switching to TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process, Qualcomm should be able to keep performance high while consuming less power. It can also increase the power limits a bit for better multi-core performance, but not too much.

As with the Galaxy S24 series, it looks like there will be another overclocked ‘for Galaxy’ version of the chipset, exclusive to Samsung phones.

Oryon/Phoenix CPU cores

A better manufacturing process isn’t the only thing that affects a chip’s performance and power consumption. The custom CPU designs also play a big role.

According to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, Qualcomm will likely ditch the current ARM designs for its own so-called Oryon or Phoenix cores. These will have a different setup than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, possibly without efficiency cores at all.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will likely have a ‘2 + 6’ CPU layout instead of the ‘1 + 3 + 4’ in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This means that all cores will be performance cores, which could result in a nice boost for multi-core performance.

While this may lead to increased power requirements, this should be offset by a move to the 3nm node, and so the chip should be more power efficient overall.

It is also rumored that Qualcomm will test the new chip at 4.00 GHz, much faster than the 8 Gen 3.

This should improve both single-core and multi-threaded performance. Early benchmarks show it it significantly outperforms the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and even competes with Apple’s M3 chip:

New Adreno GPU

Rumors suggest that Qualcomm will introduce the Adreno 830 GPU in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. We don’t have detailed specs yet, but X-leaker Revegnus suggests it could be faster than Apple’s top M2 GPU in some tests.

This makes us curious about the graphics performance, especially after seeing the 8 Gen 3 outperform Apple’s M2 in one benchmark.

In a multi-core test, Chinese technology site TechNews reports that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 achieves more than 10,000 points on Geekbench 6, while the Adreno 830 GPU maintains similar power consumption to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 but delivers significant performance improvements. It is speculated that the entire chipset consumes only 8W of power.

But stiff competition is coming, with MediaTek preparing its Dimensity 9400 and Apple expected to release the A18 and A18 Pro chips for the upcoming iPhone 16 range. It seems to be an exciting battle between 3nm smartphone chips in 2024.

If you need to buy a phone now, check out our current selection of the best smartphones, along with the best upcoming phones in 2024. There’s a small chance that some of the latter will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.