28% Performance Benefit from Gen 2

A review of A76/A77/X1 single core benchmarks for smartphone SoC yields the following results:

• Snapdragon 855(+); A76 @ 1.8GHz; 727~758
• Snapdragon 865(+); A77 @ 1.8GHz; 880~910
• Snapdragon 888; X1 @ 1.8GHz; 964~1058

Comparing A76/A77/X1 at the lower end of the range, the ratio is 100/121/133 – very similar to the ratio at the higher end of the range,100/120/146.

Compared with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 benchmark, Gen 3 provides a 28% performance benefit – this may be due to the reduced frequency from 3.15GHz to 2.69GHz in Gen 3. Based on this data, we are confident that Gen 3 contains X1 cores.

Multi-Core Performance Benefits

Qualcomm claims that the updated Kryo cores work to deliver a 40% boost in single-core CPU performance and an even more impressive 85% boost in multi-core. We believe that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 contains one X1 core, three A78, and four A55 cores like the Snapdragon 888. However, Apple’s small cores (Icestorm and Blizzard) are much larger than A55. A larger efficiency core has the potential to compete with Apple’s SoCs. Given Qualcomm’s 85% improvement in multi-core performance, it puts them in a better position to compete with Apple.

An XDA Developers article stated that "Included in the new flagship chipset are four Kryo cores that are based on Cortex-X1 and four that are based on Cortex-A78."

From the multi-core benchmark results of 888/855(+) below, the performance benefit is only ~50% which indicate that the performance of Gen 3 from Gen 2 is clearly different than that of 888 from 855. This may suggest that Gen 3 has improved due to a multi-core configuration (such as quad X1 + quad A78).

Source: Geekbench Android Benchmark Chart

Stay tuned for TechInsights’ upcoming Floorplan Analysis on the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. Once available, it will be interesting to see how the floorplan has evolved compared to the Snapdragon 8cx gen1/gen2/Microsoft SQ1/SQ2 floorplan (all these 4 dies have same floorplan!)