Leaked conversation documents between Qualcomm and its partners in South Korea have revealed that the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will arrive in 2 variants, one variant manufactured under TSMC’s 4nm process and another variant manufactured under TSMC’s 3nm process.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 variants visualised. (by Leo Wong De Quan/Gizmochina)

The news comes from the South Korean blog site gamma0burst, which has shared the leaked email conversations between Qualcomm and its smartphone partners such as Samsung. In the leaked documents, Qualcomm stated that the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will be using ARM’s latest Cortex X4, Cortex A720, and Cortex A520 CPU cores for its chipset CPU structure.

But where things get interesting is that Qualcomm (in the emails) also shared that the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (SM8650) SoC will be available in two variants, one is manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm N4P node process, and another variant manufactured on TSMC’s 3nm N3E node process.

Leaked Qualcomm email about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Source: gamma0burst

It is confusing as to why Qualcomm is expecting to create 2 different variants of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor for Android flagships in 2024, but if history is of any indication, it could be that 2024 Android flagships are in for a wild ride next year. 

For context, the last time Qualcomm released the two same flagship Snapdragon processors with an identical CPU combo was the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in 2022. The major difference between both processors? The node process that the SoCs were manufactured on. The standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is manufactured on Samsung’s 4nm process, which at the time garnered a fiery reputation for overheating and its poor power efficiency. Meanwhile, the later-released Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm process, which turned out to be a much better improvement for the flagship chipset giving up to 30% better power efficiency with lower smartphone temperatures as well.

It is unclear whether the two TSMC variants of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will be named separately as non-Plus and Plus versions in 2024. However, it will be interesting to see the performance difference and the power efficiency difference between both variants since their CPU combo structure is the same with the only difference being the manufacturing process again like the 2022 Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and 8+ Gen 1 processors.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile processor is expected to launch next month on October 24 at the Snapdragon Summit 2023 in Hawaii. To learn more about Qualcomm’s latest releases, stay tuned to our coverage of the event next month.

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