This coming week is a big one if you're interested in how the best Android phones arriving in the next year are going to perform. Qualcomm, which makes the silicon that powers most of the top Android devices on the market, holds its annual tech summit starting Monday (October 21). And that should give us a glance at the next top-of-the-line system-on-chip ready to take on Apple's A18 silicon.
Earlier this year, Qualcomm confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 would appear at its annual conference in October, and the company's Snapdragon Summit site also notes that the next generation of Snapdragon chips is very much on the agenda for the week ahead. So it's finally time to see what Qualcomm has been working on and what that will mean for smartphone performance in the very near future.
The stakes are certainly high for Qualcomm and its upcoming mobile chipset. Recent releases from the chip maker have delivered big leaps forward in performance and battery life, with last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset topping the A16 Bionic and A17 Pro silicon powering Apple's iPhone 15 lineup in some tests. The A18 chips found in this fall's iPhone 16 models re-established Apple's strength in overall performance, as illustrated in benchmark testing using Geekbench 6. But Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered Android phones continue to produce more frame rates than the latest iPhones in key graphics tests.
Here's what we know about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 headed into the Snapdragon Summit, along with leaks and rumors about the chipset's potential performance.
How to watch Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit
Snapdragon Summit 2024: Day 1 Keynote Livestream - YouTube
The Snapdragon Summit gets underway Monday, October 21 and runs through Wednesday, October 23. I'll be on hand in Maui to bring you the latest news as Qualcomm announces it, but if you like, you can follow along on the live stream of the Snapdragon Summit keynote. The event begins at 3 p.m. ET/ noon PT/ 8 p.m. BST on Monday.
What we know about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4
Qualcomm already let the cat out of the bag earlier this month about one of the big announcements surrounding its next premium mobile chipset. As confirmed by a teaser video, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will use an Oryon CPU, ditching the Kryo CPU featured in previous mobile chipsets.
Oryon debuted in the Snapdragon X Elite silicon for connected laptops last year. It's a custom-designed CPU by Qualcomm's that's intended to boost performance, with the chip maker clearly hoping to bring that kind of optimization to its mobile system-on-chip. Nothing further's been said about Qualcomm's Oryon plans for its mobile chips, but you'd imagine the CPU making its way to the Snapdragon 8 is tailor-made for mobile devices.
Qualcomm has teased one other detail back in February when it talked up the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4's launch later in the year. A Qualcomm executive also mentioned the "evolution of our NPU story" — a reference to the neural processing unit that's part of Qualcomm's system-on-chip. That's hardly a shock, as AI features were a big focus with last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 release. And very clearly, device makers are eager to add more AI capabilities to their phones.
Top Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 rumors
Most of the information out there about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 comes from rumored specs and leaked benchmark scores — in other words, none of this is official. But it does paint a picture of what Qualcomm could have up its sleeve for next week's tech summit.
In addition to the Oryon CPU confirmed by Qualcomm, the new chipset should feature an Adreno 8-series GPU supporting up to 3840x2560 resolution and a refresh rate of up to 144Hz, according to alleged specs posted online. That same leaker claims the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will feature LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 4.0 storage.
The leaks that have people talking, though, involve Geekbench scores. In September, benchmark results from a phone reportedly running on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 showed scores of 3,236 on the single-core Geekbench 6 test.
For context, that would improve upon the numbers posted by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered Galaxy S24 and OnePlus 12 by 45% and 48%, respectively. It would fall just behind the A18-powered iPhone 16's 3,301 result in our testing, but the leaked benchmarks also show a Geekbench multicore score of 10,049 for the alleged Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 device. The iPhone 16 posted an 8,033 result on the multicore test.
Later in September, leaked test results claimed to show the performance of an unreleased Galaxy S25 Ultra running on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, though one with throttled clock speed. That device posted single and multicore scores of 3,069 and 9,080, respectively. Again, the single core result trailed the A18 Pro-powered iPhone 16 Pro (3,386) but beat the multicore score by 9%.
Benchmark scores are certainly sexy, real or rumored, but they're not the only thing that goes into updating a system-on-chip. There's also the GPU, and the technologies that it supports to deliver console-quality gaming. The Snapdragon features an image signal processor, too, along with a neural processing unit, and we'd anticipate updates on how both have changed for Qualcomm's newest mobile silicon.
What phones will feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4?
If this year's Snapdragon Summit sticks to form, the official Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 announcement will include a list of phone makers publicly committing to using the silicon in future devices. And if history is any guide Samsung won't be included in that list. That won't necessarily mean that Samsung isn't planning on featuring the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in at least some of its upcoming Galaxy S25 models — just that Samsung tends to announce those plans on its own timeline.
That said, there's a lot of speculation about what chipset might appear in different Galaxy S25 models. It's widely assumed that Samsung might follow what it did with the Galaxy S24 release — use the new Snapdragon chip exclusively in the Ultra model, but restrict its use to certain markets with the Plus and standard Galaxy S releases. (Only the North American versions of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus used the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.) Other parts of the world would see Galaxy S25 models running on Samsung's Exynos chip.
But there are conflicting rumors out there, with some claiming that Samsung will skip the Exynos 2500 in favor of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for every Galaxy S25 model. Yet another report suggests Samsung is considering a MediaTek Dimensity system-on-chip for its flagship. Whatever winds up happening, don't expect much clarity at the Snapdragon Summit — instead, we expect the chipset question to clear up closer to the Galaxy S25's launch in early 2025.
It's not just the Galaxy S25 that's looming on the horizon. The OnePlus 13 could also launch by the end of the year in China before a global release in early 2025. OnePlus typically uses Qualcomm's best silicon for its flagship release, which would mean that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is likely to show up in the OnePlus 13.
Other potential Snapdragon Summit announcements
Besides a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip for phones, Qualcomm has already been clear about another announcement at its event this week. Another teaser video on the Snapdragon Summit website features a car festooned with a Snapdragon logo parked on a beach, making it pretty clear that the chip maker is going to talk about is automotive business this week in Hawaii. Qualcomm makes chips for connected cars and smart vehicles.
Past Snapdragon Summits have also included announcements surrounding connected computing — last year's Snapdragon X Elite launch is the perfect example of that. In recent months, we've seen Intel release its Lunar Lake chips as the push to introduce AI laptops continues. You'd imagine Qualcomm is working on an X Elite follow-up to stay at the forefront of that market.
Qualcomm also supplies chips in another sector gaining a lot of interest as of late — mixed reality headsets. The Meta Quest 3S that just began shipping this month runs on a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip. It's possible Qualcomm could an update on its efforts with AR and VR devices.
More from Tom's Guide
- iPhone 16 Pro benchmarks — how the A18 Pro performs
- Snapdragon X Plus — your guide to Samsung's mobile computing processor
- Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: Which phone could win?
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