Galaxy S25 could use wildly powerful 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could have a 2+6 CPU structure with Nuvia's Oryon cores

According to reliable leakster DCS (Digital Chat Station) on Weibo, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 (codename SUN) is a 3nm chip made by TSMC. It reportedly has an octa-core Oryon CPU featuring two high-performance Phoenix L CPU cores and six power-efficient Phoenix M CPU cores. He claims that Qualcomm has made significant gains in performance and that the CPU performance will be similar to Apple's M series chips. This is the same chip expected to be used in the Galaxy S25 series, at least in the North American markets. In other countries, Samsung could equip the Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25+ with its Exynos 2500 processor (a.k.a Dream Chip).

Another tipster, Revegnus, claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor consumes 8W of power, lower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, offering improved power efficiency. He also claims that the Adreno 830 GPU inside the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is 10% more powerful than the desktop-grade M2 chip inside Apple's laptops and desktops. Apparently, Qualcomm's next flagship chipset can score over 2,800 points in Geekbench 6's single-core CPU performance test and over 10,000 points in multi-core CPU performance test. The custom Oryon CPU cores have been developed by the Nuvia team, which Qualcomm acquired a couple of years ago.

Apple has had a dream run over the past decade regarding the performance and efficiency of its A-series in-house chips. Android processor makers MediaTek, Samsung, and Qualcomm have been trying for years to match Apple's performance but to no avail. However, it finally looks like Qualcomm can reach Apple's level with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. However, take this information with a pinch of salt, as these are just rumored claims, and the data can only be trusted after looking at the real-life performance of the chip.