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Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 vs A18 benchmark scores suggest days of iPhone supremacy are over

By Anam Hamid

Published: Mar 10, 2024, 3:05 PM

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Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 vs A18 benchmark scores suggest days of iPhone supremacy are over

Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips have been steadily narrowing the performance gap with Apple's A-series chipsets. A new rumor claims that the next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip will be faster than the A18 which will power the iPhone 16.

Top flagship phones of today are already faster than the average consumer needs them to be. No one dislikes extra performance headroom though and with the increased emphasis on AI capabilities and longer software support for Android handsets, the need for speed has never been greater.

A new rumor from South Korea (via Notebookcheck) claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will beat the Apple A18 in benchmark tests.

Per the leak, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is expected to achieve a single core score of 3,500, while the A18 is unlikely to go beyond 3,300. The rumor also says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will do better on the multi-core test and its GPU will also be faster.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4's new Oryon cores could give it a huge edge

Qualcomm has already confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be unveiled in October. The supercharged chip will feature Oryon cores, which will give it an edge over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. That's because the recent chips used cores licensed from Arm. In contrast, the Oryon cores are custom Arm cores and have been designed by Qualcomm.

Nuvia, the company that Qualcomm bought in 2021, originally started working on the cores to compete better with Apple.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is presumably also Qualcomm's first 3nm chip. Rumors also say that the chip will only consist of Phoenix performance cores.

Qualcomm seems to be doing everything in its power to give the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 a tremendous speed boost and the latest rumor suggests it may succeed. The leak also claims that the main core will be clocked at 4.3 GHz, which is a lot higher than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s Cortex-X4 peak frequency of 3.30GHz. The higher clock speed will also increase power consumption, with the report saying it can go as high as 1.3V.

This could cause Snapdragon 8 Gen 4-powered phones to overheat and Qualcomm wouldn't want that. Additionally, a single core score of 3,500 is too big of a jump over 2,187, which is what the Galaxy S24 Ultra managed.

So while the use of new cores and an improved manufacturing process may help the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 beat the A18, the winning margin might not be as high as the leak suggests.

Qualcomm could also be testing multiple versions of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, as a previous report said that a variant running at a lower speed got single and multi-core scores of 2,845 and 10,628, respectively. If that turns out to be the case, the A18 will continue to be faster.

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Anam Hamid is a computer scientist turned tech journalist who has a keen interest in the tech world, with a particular focus on smartphones and tablets. She has previously written for Android Headlines and has also been a ghostwriter for several tech and car publications. Anam is not a tech hoarder and believes in using her gadgets for as long as possible. She is concerned about smartphone addiction and its impact on future generations, but she also appreciates the convenience that phones have brought into our lives. Anam is excited about technological advancements like folding screens and under-display sensors, and she often wonders about the future of technology. She values the overall experience of a device more than its individual specs and admires companies that deliver durable, high-quality products. In her free time, Anam enjoys reading, scrolling through Reddit and Instagram, and occasionally refreshing her programming skills through tutorials.