Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Apple A17 Professional: A surprisingly even match-up

Apple and Qualcomm make a few of the greatest smartphone chips and their newest releases aren’t any exception. Each corporations have now launched their flagship SoCs that may energy high-end smartphone experiences all through most of 2024. However you might be questioning, which firm has taken the efficiency crown this era and by how a lot? Let’s discover out on this Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Apple A17 Professional comparability.

Although the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and A17 Professional are each Arm-based smartphone SoCs, they’re essentially very completely different underneath the hood.

Qualcomm licenses Arm’s CPU cores and is part of the Cortex-X Customized Program. This implies the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 makes use of Arm’s top-end Cortex-X4 efficiency core, which we’ll additionally doubtless see current in upcoming SoCs from Samsung and others. In truth, MediaTek has already introduced that its Dimensity 9300 contains not one however 4 Cortex-X4 cores. Apple, in the meantime, is the one smartphone vendor to design its personal cores based mostly on Arm’s structure, fairly than shopping for off-the-shelf CPU core designs.

The distinction in CPU cores implies that we can not straight examine the 2 chips in areas like clock pace or core rely. Although broadly talking, Apple’s cores are typically a bit greater and extra individually highly effective, whereas Qualcomm’s octa-core setup has traditionally closed the hole by advantage of extra cores. That stated, the spec sheet does inform us that the A17 Professional is constructed on a more recent 3nm course of node vs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s 4nm node. A more recent course of node usually interprets to higher effectivity on the identical efficiency stage, larger peak efficiency, or each. To search out out if that holds true, we ran via our suite of benchmarks to check the 2 SoCs. We’ve additionally included some current Android telephones for reference.

Apple’s customized Arm cores assist the A17 Professional pull off a convincing 26% lead in Geekbench 6’s single-core check. Nevertheless, Qualcomm has packed 5 mid-tier cores and two effectivity cores within the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, permitting it to attain larger than the six-core A17 Professional in multi-core workloads. Nonetheless, Apple’s flagship SoC managed a multi-core rating of 7278, which isn’t too far behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s 7506.

It’s value noting that we examined Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 reference machine. Retail units packing the Snapdragon flagship chip could not provide the identical stage of efficiency we recorded above attributable to thermal or design constraints. On that be aware, we noticed Qualcomm’s reference machine throttle to half of its efficiency throughout our 3DMark Wildlife Stress Take a look at. That’s not a great signal for sustained efficiency in longer workloads like video modifying and exports. Apple’s newest chip was additionally affected by thermal issues however a software program replace mounted the iPhone 15’s overheating drawback with out compromising on efficiency. We’ll have to attend for retail units to see if the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can carry out as reliably underneath load.

Provided that the iPhone 15 Professional can play full console video games like Resident Evil Village, you may assume that Apple’s A17 Professional has essentially the most highly effective GPU of any cell SoC. Nevertheless, that’s not truly the case. Based mostly on our testing, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is 32% sooner than Apple’s 2023 flagship SoC in 3DMark’s Wildlife Excessive benchmark. It’s additionally 37% forward within the Photo voltaic Bay ray-tracing check. Nevertheless, the hole closes when stressing the GPUs to the max for longer gaming periods.

Nonetheless, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s spectacular outcomes level to a promising future for Android gaming. Nevertheless, the iOS App Retailer has completed a great job courting a variety of builders, which just lately contains AAA console gaming experiences like Resident Evil Village. So, in the event you’re seeking to play such titles, you’ll have to decide on the A17 Professional. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 might carry out a bit higher for cross-platform video games, and Android has a reasonably first rate number of indie ports of its personal.

AI has change into a key focus for nearly all tech giants, so it’s not stunning that Qualcomm spoke rather a lot about it when it launched the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in October 2023. The SoC is sort of twice as highly effective this era and has been designed with generative AI in thoughts.

Throughout its announcement, Qualcomm demonstrated the chip operating massive language fashions and AI picture turbines like Secure Diffusion fully on-device. Smartphone makers may also leverage the SoC to take away objects from movies, broaden photos, and improve digicam high quality in darker scenes.

Apple, in the meantime, doesn’t usually tout its chip’s AI efficiency in the way in which Qualcomm does. As a substitute, it chooses to focus on particular options that make their technique to the most recent iPhone. However whilst Google and Qualcomm pushed the boundaries of linguistic and photographic realities with generative AI this yr, Apple didn’t appear fascinated with becoming a member of the bandwagon. As a substitute, the corporate merely touted improved autocorrect and object detection as key AI developments in the course of the iPhone 15 keynote.

Qualcomm could have a extra glitzy AI-filled slide deck, however there’s no assure Android cellphone makers will likely be fast to undertake or construct such AI options. The hole between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Apple 17 Professional received’t be such a giant deal till these come alongside, however we predict a minimum of a couple of fascinating AI improvements packed into 2024 Android flagships.

The 2 chips aren’t to date aside in different areas. Apple has launched assist for ray tracing graphics and AV1 video decoding for the primary time on the A17 Professional. That stated, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 nonetheless takes a couple of minor wins like Wi-Fi 7, 8K video recording, and 8K show out assist.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 isn’t a simple competitor to the Apple A17 Professional since they’re destined for various smartphone ecosystems. However in the event you’re contemplating leaping ship from iPhone to Android or vice-versa, you’ll be glad to know that each SoCs are actually high-end items of silicon. Certain, we’ve got a couple of reservations concerning the sustained efficiency of Qualcomm’s chip, however its graphics capabilities nonetheless look spectacular, and day by day smartphone utilization will completely fly. Not forgetting the 8 Gen 3 is packed to the rafters with best-in-class AI and networking capabilities.

Apple stunned us with its dedication to gaming this era. Builders porting PS5-quality video games virtually single-handedly makes the A17 Professional appear extra interesting for cell players. We solely hope Apple continues to strike partnerships with recreation studios to convey much more video games to its App Retailer.

We’ll spherical out this comparability with a phrase on pricing. The Apple A17 Professional has a excessive entry price, as you’ll need to shell out a minimal of $1,000 for an iPhone 15 Professional. In the meantime, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ought to make its technique to the $700 to $800 smartphone section inside a couple of months. All eyes are on Samsung’s Galaxy S24 collection and different large 2024 releases, that are anticipated to pack Qualcomm’s flagship chip. Till then, which SoC would you fairly have in your subsequent smartphone?