Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 spotted in alleged benchmark listing, more details revealed

Qualcomm has been coasting at the top, thanks to its amazing SoCs that are present on practically all the top Android flagships. The past two releases at the top, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, have been very impressive in performance and efficiency, so the bar is set high for their successor. We’ve heard a few things about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 already, but the chip has been freshly spotted in an alleged benchmark scoresheet, revealing a few more details.

Prolific leaker Digital Chat Station has shared an alleged Geekbench 5 scoresheet of a new nubia smartphone on Weibo. The nubia NX769J is said to be the upcoming REDMAGIC 9, and it is widely expected to be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

While benchmark listings can be faked to reveal data about phones that do not exist, it is difficult to fake a new SoC in a benchmark listing. It’s not impossible though, so take this news with a pinch of salt. We could not locate the listing mentioned and cannot independently verify its existence. The image attached to the Weibo post has been attached below.

There are a few interesting details to note here, presuming the benchmark scoresheet is accurate. The nubia NX769J is running Android 14. The motherboard on the new phone is “pineapple,” which lines up with the past leaks of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 reference device.

According to this alleged benchmark scoresheet, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will have one prime core running at 3.19GHz, five performance cores running at 2.96GHz, and two efficiency cores running at 2.27GHz. The single-core score is 1596, and the multi-core score is 5977 on Geekbench 5.

While not mentioned in the benchmark scoresheet, Digital Chat Station suggests this is a “regular” version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This indicates a “special version” could also be in the works.

Qualcomm usually launches a “plus” version of its top SoC. For 2023, that took the form of the “Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy” smartphones in the year’s first half. Other phones called this SoC an “overclocked” Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. We could possibly see something similar play out for 8 Gen 3, too.

Further, Digital Chat Station mentions the core layout. The prime core is said to be an ARM Cortex-X4, the performance cores are said to be ARM Cortex-A720, and the efficiency cores are said to be ARM Cortex-A520. This lines up with previous rumors about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The GPU is said to be the Adreno 750.

Since the phone is still under testing, the final version of the REDMAGIC 9 is said to bump up the Geekbench 5 scores to about 1,700 and 6,600 for single-core and multi-core, respectively.

We expect Qualcomm to officially announce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 at the Snapdragon Tech Summit sometime in October or November. Until then, these leaks should sate our appetite.