Farewell to ARM: Tipster says Qualcomm will debut its own Oryon cores for Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip
Earlier this month we passed along some rumors about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC that will be produced by TSMC using its 4nm process node (which is actually related to the 5nm node). The chip will reportedly use a 1-4-3 configuration made up of a high-performance X-4 core running at a clock speed of 3.70GHz, four performance cores, and three efficiency cores. Perhaps we will see a repeat of what was done this year and an overclocked version of the component, known as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, will be headed to the Galaxy S24 line in 2024.
A tweet from a tipster with the handle Revegnus (via Wccftech) compares specs and benchmark test results between next year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 2025's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The tipster says that the latter will be produced using TSMC's N3E process node. That is the foundry's second-generation 3nm node which will deliver increased performance and energy-efficiency improvements better than what was generated by the first-generation 3nm chipsets. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC will use Qualcomm's own Oryon cores replacing ARM's CPU architecture which could result in as much as a 40% improvement in multi-core performance.
Tipster posts rumored specs for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 4
In January 2021, Qualcomm bought Nuvia, the company behind the Oryon cores, for $1.5 billion in an effort to take on Apple's M2 chip. Revegnus says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can score 6500 on the Geekbench 5 multi-core benchmark test. He sees the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 scoring above the 9000 mark (9100 to be exact) which would give it a 40% higher score than the M2. The difference is that the M2 isn't expected to find its way under the hood of any iPhone model while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could end up powering the Galaxy S25 line.
Revegnus also says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be an octa-core chip with a configuration that includes two Nuvia Phoenix (or Oryon) performance cores and six Nuvia Phoenix (or Oryon) M' efficiency cores.
To be clear, ARM's Cortex CPU cores will be replaced by Qualcomm's own CPU cores starting with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC. However, Qualcomm will still need to license the ARM V9 instruction set in order to build the Oryon cores.
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