Mobile gaming is about to get much more supercharged, as Qualcomm has announced the latest entry in its line of processors for Android smartphones. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip will continue to deliver premium-tier gaming performance, with CPU and GPU speeds being 20 percent and 30 percent faster, respectively, than its predecessor.
More notably, the tech giant touts a gaming experience at up to 240FPS (frames per second) with improved ray tracing. Flagship devices powered by the processor — including ASUS, Honor, iQOO, MEIZU, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE — are set to be available in the coming weeks.
The news comes after Apple’s recent push into mobile gaming, which sees the iPhone 15 Pro line adopting the new A17 Pro processor. This means players will be able to play AAA titles like Resident Evil 4 Remake, Resident Evil Village, Death Stranding, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage while on the go. Granted, the upgrade may be possible for Android users, but it can only work if these OEMs (short for original equipment manufacturers) are able to work with the developers.
Additionally, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ships with several useful AI features, such as Video Object Eraser and Photo Expansion. The former allows users to remove objects from videos, while the latter can extend and fill out the edges of a photo, similar to the Generative AI or Content-Aware feature on Adobe Photoshop.
Mobile devices aren’t the only ones to receive an upgrade. Qualcomm also unveiled the new Snapdragon X Elite platform, its most powerful computing processor to date. According to the company, it surpasses what Apple, Intel, and AMD chips have to offer, with a chart — albeit unhelpful and vague — highlighting its benchmarking performance against multiple Intel Core i7 processors. PCs are expected to ship in 2024.
Bringing the platforms together is a new technology called Snapdragon Seamless, described as “a cross-platform technology that enables Android, Windows, and Snapdragon devices using other operating systems to discover each other and share information to work as one integrated system.” Incorporated into Snapdragon’s mobile platforms, its current partners include Microsoft, Google, Dell, Lenovo, Honor, and Oppo.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Edwin Teo
Trinity Sun
