Usually, Qualcomm takes several months before announcing its Snapdragon Summit, the event during which it unveils the high-end chipset intended for next year's premium smartphones.
This time, however, a change in practice seems to have occurred: the company's CMO published a video stating that Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, the first Qualcomm chip with the new core Oryonwill be presented in October.
The move from ARM cores to custom ones gives Qualcomm a competitive advantage, which with access to TSMC's second-generation 3nm manufacturing process represents a strategic move to effectively compete with powerful Apple Silicon chips.
Performance only
Don McGuire who we see above, Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcomm, took advantage of theeffervescence of the Mobile World Congress for the announcement.
Disseminated via the official account @Snapdragon_UK, McGuire, in the short two-minute video, does not reveal any new crucial details on the specifications of Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, limiting himself to the launch month, but not without arousing interest.
Unlike Qualcomm's previous high-end chipsets, the new cores called 'Phoenix' will be adopted.
Similar to the Dimensity 9300, the paradigm shift will lead toelimination of efficiency corespresenting a fully performance-oriented CPU cluster.
The configuration will be 2+6 type and clock frequency up to 4 GHz for the two cores, so-called “Prime”.
The purpose behind this design is to encourage unrivaled multicore performanceleveraging the exceptional efficiency afforded by large-scale production of TSMC's third-generation 3nm process, known as 'N3E'.
In the video, McGuire invites enthusiasts to contemplate the growing role of artificial intelligence, painting a future in which it acts as a “sixth sense or second brain” for humans, rather than replacing them.
In addition to improvements in the CPU and presumably in the GPU, we know that Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will integrate aneural processing unit (NPU), a key element to compete in the race for artificial intelligence to which Apple is also constantly dedicating itself.
How much it costs me
The “good news” about the power of the new Snapdragon seems to involve consumers more than Qualcomm's commercial partners.
The treatment reserved for the latter could be rather harsh: some company executives have already advanced that Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be the most expensive smartphone chipset ever produced by the company. The cost increase is mainly attributable to theimplementation of custom cores Oryon.
As a result, phone makers will have to choose whether set higher prices for their premium offerings, burdening consumers, or sacrificing profit margins in an attempt to push more units to market.
Regardless, it appears that Qualcomm is not encountering any problems, confidently progressing towards a significant gain.
However, it remains to be seen whether these innovations will ultimately be sufficient to place themselves on the same level as Apple.
In the months to come, new benchmarks and rumors will provide further details in this regard.
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