What we expect from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC
Qualcomm is all set to announce its peak mobile SoC offering for the year at the Snapdragon Summit, scheduled to take place in late October 2024. The Qualcomm Snapdragon will be developed from the ground up and will be based on 3nm architecture following its upcoming rival, Apple’s A18 Pro. This will ensure a highly efficient system for the devices to feature it.
So, what is changing for the Qualcomm flagship SoC this year?
It’s anticipated that Qualcomm will ditch the Cortex cores that had been used in its previous chipsets and this time Qualcomm will be using its self-developed Oryon cores which will help it in better integration and reduce costs. However, it’s also expected that the Oryon cores will be scaled down for lesser power consumption as the present Oryon cores are focused on raw-computing prowess. A leak from X(@QaM_Section31) suggests that the peak clock speed of the performance core will be 4.3 GHz.
Galaxy S25 series to be built on Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC
A few months back, we saw rumors stating that the S25 series would be based on Samsung’s own flagship Exynos chipset but now there is a change of air. The new leak comes from the popular analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
Ming-Chi Kuo’s tweet says that this year’s top-end Samsung offering, the Exynos 2500 “may not ship due to Samsung’s lower-than-expected 3nm yield” which automatically suggests that we will be seeing the Snapdragon 8 Gen power the S25 series across all markets.
Qualcomm will likely be the sole SoC supplier for the Samsung Galaxy S25 (vs. 40% for the S24), as the Exynos 2500 may not ship due to Samsung’s lower-than-expected 3nm yield.
In addition to the significant increase in supply share, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will see a price…
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) June 17, 2024
Here are the leaked specs of the upcoming Galaxy Fold 6.
Price Hike for the Galaxy S25 series
Just when tech enthusiasts were happy that Samsung would follow in the steps of Google for using TSMC-manufactured chips, disheartenment followed.
Also, see the Pixel 10 series latest leak here.
In a post on Medium, Ming-Chi Kuo says that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will cost 25-30% more than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The analyst says “This price increase is primarily due to adopting TSMC’s latest and more expensive N3E node.”
This points to the high likelihood that Samsung will retrieve this cost from the consumers of its S25 series by increasing the price of the smartphones similar to the $100 hike for the S24 Ultra resulting in a price tag starting at $1,399.
However, it is to be noted that it is too early to assume that the Snapdragon chip will power the S25 series and there can always be a change in the upcoming time.
Check S24 FE’s latest leak here.
