Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2: Everything you need to know

Update: The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 are now the latest and greatest chipset from Qualcomm. However, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is still being used in new phones like the OnePlus 12R.

Qualcomm announced its next flagship mobile processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, at its Snapdragon Tech Summit in Hawaii on November 15, 2022. It’s the new processor that we will see in almost all flagship smartphones launching in 2023. So it’s a pretty important chipset.

In this article, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about this new chipset. Including how powerful it is, how power efficient it is, and so much more. So you’re prepared for when the latest smartphones start rolling out with it next year.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 specs

What’s new in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2?

There’s quite a bit that’s new with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 this year, though quite a bit of it, users won’t really see. Remember, Qualcomm’s chipsets are more of an entire package, instead of just a chip. Qualcomm is involved in a lot of areas in smartphones, including the modem, the ISP and more.

Snapdragon Smart

This year, Qualcomm’s AI Engine is still included in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It will provide groundbreaking AI integrated across the entire system. It’s fueled by the Hexagon Processor, which users will be able to experience faster natural language processing with multi-language translation and advanced AI camera features. There’s also a bigger Tensor accelerator this year, for up to 4.35x increased AI performance.

This is also the first Snapdragon mobile platform to support INT4. That is a revolutionary AI precision format. Which is going to provide a 60% performance per watt improvement. That’s going to be great for sustained AI inferencing.

On top of that, there’s the Qualcomm Sensing Hub which does now pack dual AI processors, it also supports intuitive experiecnes that will enable custom wake words. Qualcomm says to expect additional features and tools from the Qualcomm AI Stack. That includes the Qualcomm AI Studio, so developers are able to give new life to next-gen AI apps.

Snapdragon Connect

With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Qualcomm is debuting an industry-first. And that is support for WiFi 7 on this chipset. That’s part of the new FastConnect 7800 that’s inside the chipset. It also supports Dual Bluetooth connectivity for sustained immersion. There’s also High Band Simultaneous Multi-Link which can enable peak WiFi 7 speeds and performance globally. Now keep in mind, the WiFi 7 standard hasn’t really even been finalized.

Now in terms of the new Snapdragon X70 5G Modem-RF System, it has some upgrades too. Qualcomm claims that it is the most advanced 5G modem on the market. It’s the first Snapdragon platform that supports 5G+5G/4G Dual-SIM Dual-Active. That’s going to allow you to use two 5G SIMs at the same time. The same peak speed is available here, of 10Gbps as well.

Snapdragon Sight

The cameras have always been a big part of the Snapdragon mobile platform, and that’s no different this year. Qualcomm is delivering professional quality camera experiences with its first ever Cognitive ISP. So this new chipset is going to be able to automatically enhance photos and videos in real time with semantic segmentation. That will use AI neural networks to make the camera contextually aware of faces, facial features, hair, clothes, skies and more.

Sony will be working on the first quad digital overlap HDR technology, which will be fine-tuned for Snapdragon. While Samsung’s ISOCELL HP3 image sensor is optimized for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. That’s the first ever 200MP camera. This is also going to be the first Snapdragon mobile platform to support the AV1 codec. That gives it support for video playback up to 8K HDR and 60 frames per second.

Snapdragon Elite Gaming

It couldn’t be a new chipset without some new features for Snapdragon Elite Gaming. Qualcomm is including real time hardware-accelerated ray tracing that delivers life-like light, reflections and illuminations to mobile games. This is thanks to the upgraded Adreno 740 GPU, which can deliver up to 25% faster performance. As well as the upgraded Qualcomm Kryo CPU which enables up to 40% more power efficiency.

This is going to give users better gameplay, and better battery life. Gamers will also be able to experience photorealistic human characters in their games with the world’s first mobile optimized support for Unreal Engine 5 Metahumans Framework on Snapdragon.

Snapdragon Sound

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 does touch nearly every aspect of your phone, and that includes the sound. Snapdragon Sound is here to provide premium and immersive music, calls and gaming. It uses spatial audio with dynamic head tracking for complete surround-sound immersion and support for 48kHz lossless music streaming.

This also attributes to gamers, as they will have the lowest-ever latency at just 48ms. To make built-in voice backchannel even better.

Snapdragon Secure

Snapdragon Secure is here to keep your phone safe and sound. It is offering the latest in isolation, cryptography, key management, attestation and more. This is all intricately designed to protect users’ data and privacy.

When can we expect smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2?

Qualcomm says that we can expect to see the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 devices launching before the end of 2022. While we don’t know for sure who that is, Qualcomm prefers to leave that announcement up to their partners. But we do know that Honor is announcing a new foldable on November 23. That’s a little over a week from now.

As for who else is using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2? Well, Qualcomm confirmed these names:

• ASUS
• Honor
• iQOO
• Meizu
• Motorola
• Nubia
• OnePlus
• OPPO
• RedMagic
• Redmi
• Sharp
• Sony
• vivo
• Xiaomi
• ZTE

We also know from the leaks that Samsung will be using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in the Galaxy S23, which is due to launch early next year. It’s a bit surprising that Samsung’s name isn’t on this slide, but they are definitely using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.