Samsung's next-gen flagship, the Galaxy S24, is almost one year away, but rumors regarding its specifications are already popping up one month after the release of the Galaxy S23. And for the most part, these alleged leaks concern the Galaxy S24's chipset, tentatively named Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Qualcomm is working on the sequel to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and a new leak claims to reveal specifications and expected Geekbench scores.
First things first, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC doesn't have a primary core with a frequency that goes as high as 3.7GHz, according to this leak. Instead, the Cortex-X4 core is clocked at 3.2GHz, which is on par with the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. However, the Gen 2 variant used for this comparison is the one available exclusively for the Galaxy S23 flagships, which has a clock rate of 3.36GHz for the primary Cortex-X3 CPU core.
So although it looks like Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 might be more powerful than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, that's most likely not the case.
If you think this leak is a bit confusing, that's because it is. But in short, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 may or may not have a higher frequency for the primary Cortex-X4 core than the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Either way, the upcoming SoC should claim better performance than the previous generation, and the alleged leak uses Geekbench to support this claim.
https://www.twitter.com/tech_reve/status/1633688922600673280
Higher Geekbench scores and support for UFS 4.1
Aside from the primary CPU core having conflicting specifications, the leak also points to a different core configuration for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It will supposedly have one primary core, five Cortex-A720 performance cores, and two Cortex-A520 energy-efficient cores for a 1+5+2 CPU core configuration.
The Cortex-A720 cores are supposedly clocked at 3.0GHz (up 0.2GHz from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2), whereas the Cortex-A520 cores will have the same 2.0GHz frequency as the ongoing chipset. The CPU should be paired with an Adreno 750 GPU and an X75 5G modem.
Interestingly, the leak also suggests that the Galaxy S24 series may benefit from UFS 4.1 storage, or at the very least, that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will support this unannounced storage standard.
And lastly, the leak claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can beat even the iPhone 14 in Geekbench, scoring 1930 points in single-core tests and 6236 points in multi-core. The figures seem very precise, so we advise taking them with a pinch of salt.
The biggest question among Samsung fans is whether or not the Galaxy S24 will use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 exclusively or if the Exynos line of chipsets will return in some markets next year. And if Exynos doesn't make a comeback, will the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 be overclocked for Samsung and possibly run at 3.7GHz instead of 3.2GHz? Time will tell, and many things can change by the time Samsung releases the Galaxy S24 series next year. But if you're curious about how the ongoing Galaxy S23 series performs, you can check out our review video below for more details.
