Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 series processors are designed for upper mid-range smartphones, delivering a more cost-efficient alternative to the company’s flagship Snapdragon 8 series chips. But the latest Snapdragon 7 chip should bring significant performance gains over last year’s version.
The new Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor is expected to deliver up to a 15% boost in CPU performance, up to 50% faster graphics, and up to a 60% improvement in AI performance per watt.
According to Qualcomm, the first phones powered by the chip are coming soon, with “the first commercial device” scheduled for an announcement later this month. The two phone makers Qualcomm calls out by name in its press release are Honor and Vivo, so we might have to wait a little longer to see the chip show up in phones designed for the North American market.
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 is a 4nm processor features 8 CPU cores, including:
- 1 x Kryo Prime core @ 2.63 GHz
- 3 x Kryo Prime cores @ 2.4 GHz
- 4 x Kryo Efficiency cores @ 1.8 GHz
Other features include an unspecified Adreno GPU, a triple 12-bit ISP that can handle up to 200MP photo capture, up to a 64MP single camera shooting at 30 frames per second with zero shutter lag, or up to three 21MP cameras doing the same.
The chip supports WiFi 6, Bluetooth5.3, and features a Snapdragon X63 5G modem with support for download speeds up to 5 Gbps.
Phones with the new chipset will be able to support up to 16GB of LPDDR4x-2133 or LPDDR5-3200 memory and UFS 3.1 storage, and displays with resolutions up to 4K at 60 Hz, WQHD+ at up to 120 Hz, or WFHD+ at up to 168 Hz.