The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 could be here sooner than we thought

If you're a fan of Android phones, you'll likely know all about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. It's the heavyweight champion of smartphone processing, and it's found a slew of top handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S23 range.

Like most things in the tech world, Qualcomm tend to update their processor line every year. But that may be about to change.

According to a Weibo account called Digital Chat Station, the next generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip will be released a little earlier in the year than the Gen 2, with models featuring the device set for release in the fourth quarter of 2023. That's great news for tech lovers who want to see progression in their devices, giving lovers of Android phones a quicker upgrade than expected.

It's far from just a new lick of paint, too. According to Pocket Lint, leaked benchmark scores for the chipset could place it on par with the Apple A16 Bionic chip, used in the iPhone 14 Pro Max. That's no small feat – Apple have a long history of demolishing benchmark tests with their in-house chips, leaving others in the dust.

The scores themselves – around 1,800 in single-core and 6,500 in multi-core performance – are impressive, but the leap from the Gen 2 is arguably even more so. Those numbers would represent an improvement of around 20-25% over the current chip, which is already a significant step up from what was considered the standard less than six months ago.

The fact that all of this is being released more frequently, too, suggests that Qualcomm are eager to go toe-to-toe with Apple Silicon. Others, like Google, have distanced themselves from the benchmark battle, but this looks like a statement of intent from the Californian company.