The 5 biggest announcements from the show

At the Snapdragon Summit 2023, Qualcomm announced its latest chips for mobile platforms, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 premium SoC, the new S7 and S7 Pro Gen 1 audio platforms, the new Snapdragon X Elite for Windows-powered devices, and the all-new on-device generative AI features. There was a lot to unpack in a short amount of time, and Qualcomm had a very busy day.

The two-day Snapdragon Summit 2023 took place on October 24-25, and in case you’re interested in watching the live event, you can watch the entire live stream below.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 brings significant upgrades to the table, offering an enhanced and a more seamless experience. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is built on the efficient 4nm process, bringing the latest and the greatest to the masses. The new chip provides significantly better efficiency and performance than its predecessor, offering up to 30% better performance and 20% more power efficiency. The GPU is 25% faster, while it’s also 25% more efficient.

That’s not all. Qualcomm managed to improve the Ray Tracing performance by up to 40%. Despite the higher performance, the company managed to keep things under control, ensuring that the chip is more efficient and consumes 10% less power.

When it comes to connectivity, the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 offers faster 5G speeds, and the new Snapdragon X75 Model-RF system is designed with AI hardware acceleration. The chip also uses Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800 Mobile Connectivity System that brings Wi-Fi 7 for more stable, reliable, and faster connections.

Qualcomm revealed that several OEMs and smartphone makers are already working on future devices using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, including: ASUS, HONOR, IQOO, Meizu, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, REDMAGIC, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.

HONOR and Xiaomi have already confirmed that they’ll use the new powerful premium platform for their upcoming devices, the HONOR Magic 6 Pro, and the Xiaomi 14 series of flagship devices.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite

The new Snapdragon X Elite processor is the most powerful, intelligent, and efficient processor from Qualcomm yet, aimed to be equipped in Windows-powered devices. The processor comes with three significant upgrades, each focusing on important tasks, such as improving performance and efficiency, enhancing AI capabilities, and providing a smarter user experience.

The Snapdragon X Elite is built on the 4nm process and comes with a 12-core CPU with all of the cores clocked at 3.78 GHz. The CPU can be boosted up to 4.3 GHz. The RAM also boasts impressive numbers and has up to 136 GB/s bandwidth with support for up to 64GB of LPDDR5x memory. If it hasn’t been clear enough, Qualcomm also mentioned that the X Elite is 50% faster in multi-thread performance than the Apple M2 chip, and it offers twice the performance of the Intel i7-1360P processor.

The X Elite uses the Adreno GPU that also powers the mobile platforms, and Qualcomm claims up to 4.6 TFLOPs performance and support for 4K, 120Hz, HDR10 display. The chip can also seamlessly handle two 5K displays and three 4K monitors, and it’s far more efficient than the Intel i7-13800H while consuming 75% less power.

Some of the largest Windows PC manufacturers have already confirmed they’ll develop new devices with the new Snapdragon X Elite, including ASUS, HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer, Microsoft, Xiaomi, and Samsung. Devices powered by the Elite X will be announced as early as early 2024.

Snapdragon Seamless

During the Summit, Qualcomm also announced the new Snapdragon Seamless, a new universal way to communicate and use multiple devices simultaneously. New hardware framework enables all compatible devices to communicate and connect to each other, enabling a Snapdragon-powered tablet to copy+paste and edit using a Snapdragon-powered laptop or smartphone.

The company showcased the new technology by having a tablet on the left, a laptop in the middle, and another tablet on the right side. Using the laptop’s mousepad and keyboard, the user can hover the mouse over to other tablets, drag & drop, and interact with other devices seamlessly. The new solution will enable new interactions and give multi-device compatibility a whole new meaning.

Qualcomm Snapdragon S7 & S7 Pro Gen 1

Qualcomm says the new Snapdragon S7 and S7 Pro Gen 1 deliver six times the computer power and nearly 100 times the AI power of the previous generation, while consuming less power. The new chip also offers on-device AI capabilities, enhancing user experience.

The new Snapdragon S7 series enables a seamless transition between different types of noise cancelation based on the user’s surroundings and environment. As a result of the new hardware architecture, the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is significantly improved, providing a better overall experience when listening to content.

The Snapdragon S7 Pro Gen 1 takes things a step further. The new Qualcomm XPAN technology will allow users to use their Wi-Fi network within their homes and offices to transmit audio, eliminating the range disadvantage caused by the current Bluetooth technology. The XPAN technology supports high-quality formats and new frequencies ranging from 92 kHz up to 192 kHz.

Generative AI

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon X Elite are both equipped with the new Qualcomm AI Engine, bringing on-device AI capabilities that enable new possibilities and features. Thanks to the new advancements and technology improvements, the SoCs will be able to apply stable diffusion and generate images without relying on server farms – also improving privacy and security.

The new AI Engine supports various language and vision models and focuses on network-based automatic speech recognition (ASR).