Over the past month, more and more information has been emerging about the release of Qualcomm‘s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor. According to rumors so far, it is to be manufactured using TSMC’s advanced “N3E” node technology in a 3 nm process. In theory, this should mean better power efficiency for the processor, which should translate into lower battery requirements. The reality, however, promises to be quite different.
So what will be the power consumption issue?
It is already known what tactics Qualcomm has taken with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. It will be an 8-core processor, so standard these days. Two of them will be high-performance cores, i.e. Cortex-X5 at 4000 MHz. The other 6 are expected to be Cortex-A730 power-saving cores. The use of the right silicon alone is expected to provide noticeably higher performance, which will require larger power deposits from the phone’s battery. For this reason, phone manufacturers are likely to decide to implement capacious batteries in future phones equipped with this processor.
How does the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 look on paper?
There is already information on how this processor performed in benchmarks, and we have a glimpse of the preliminary specs. In one of the most popular benchmarks, AnTuTu 10, it achieved scores of 702689 and 1330057 for CPU and GPU, respectively. In comparison, its predecessor, the Gen 3, achieves scores of 462657 and 902878, respectively. This is about a 45% increase, which is undeniably an incredibly surprising performance boost.
What is the response of phone manufacturers to this processor?
Undoubtedly, companies that want to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor in their phones will have to increase the battery capacity in them. We have already received the first rumors regarding companies such as Vivo, Xiaomi, OnePlus and Oppo. Upcoming flagship phones from these companies , which are equipped with larger batteries, are probably already included in the tests. There have even been posts about the likely specifications of the OnePlus 13 phone to be equipped with this processor. Batteries of this capacity are not new, of course. For example, the OnePlus 12 has a capacity of 5400mAh, not to mention some Samsungs or Motorolas, where we can also find models with capacious batteries. For phones equipped with the upcoming Snapdragon, a larger battery will simply have to become standard.
However, there is some cause for concern.
A rumor has emerged from Chinese sources that the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is expected to reach clock speeds as high as 4.3GHz. This is undoubtedly a lot, but somehow it will have to be powered. The concern here is the likely supplied voltage of 1.3V, which could result in higher processor temperatures or even overheating phones. This is definitely too much for such a small device, especially since such voltages are sometimes not even found in desktop computers. If this is indeed true, manufacturers will therefore be forced to increase the heat dissipation efficiency of the phones, by using at least larger vapor chambers. Such voltages are nevertheless absurdly high, so let’s hope that reality will prove otherwise.
Już od najmłodszych lat zacząłem interesować się grami oraz komputerami. Z czasem postanowiłem przeistoczyć to w moje hobby. Idąc tą ścieżką, zacząłem udzielać się na forach i grupach komputerowych. Spowodowało to zwiększenie zakresu produktów, którymi się interesuję, przez co wgłębiłem się również w tematy peryferii komputerowych, działu RTV, telefonów oraz poniekąd AGD.
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