Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is rumored to reach 4.26GHz; aims to outperform Apple A18/Pro

Qualcomm is going to offer chips with its custom CPU cores, thanks to the acquisition of Nuvia. The upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is also going to boast custom cores with a 2+6 CPU cluster (two performance cores and six energy-efficient cores). According to a recent rumor from @jasonwill101 on X, a design refresh of the upcoming chip with a target frequency of 4.26GHz might be finalized next month. It reportedly aims to compete with Apple A18.

For context, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3‘s Cortex-X4 super core reaches a clock speed of up to 3.3GHz, which is significantly lower than the frequency Qualcomm is aiming to sustain with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The design of the chip was previously said to be finalized within April, with a targeted frequency of 4.00 GHz. The 4.4GHz clock speed of Apple M4‘s performance core and the single-core score is said to have inspired Qualcomm to increase clock speed further.

With the redesign, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could receive a boost in performance, especially when it comes to single-core based tasks.

TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process node is used in the Apple M4 and is also expected to be used to fabricate both the A18 series chips and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Looking at the latest Apple Silicon, it seems that the second generation 3nm node is efficient enough to sustain such high frequencies.

However, the one from Qualcomm does not support the ARMv9 instruction set and won’t have Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), which enables chips to perform complex tasks more efficiently. So we will need to see how Qualcomm manages the power efficiency this time. Some earlier reports claimed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be more power-hungry and will require smartphone manufacturers to use larger batteries.

Qualcomm is expected to unveil the chipset in the Snapdragon Summit which is likely to be held in October and the Xiaomi 15 series could be the first Oryon CPU powered Android flagship.

Notably, the company is also working on two ARM-based chips with the custom Oryon CPU cores for Windows PCs – the 12=-core Snapdragon X Elite and another 10-core Snapdragon X Plus.

Related: