Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 appeared out of thin air on the company’s official website recently. That makes it the third chipset in the Snapdragon 6 series, alongside the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and 6s Gen 3. The company has skipped the 6 Gen 2, releasing 6 Gen 3 as a direct successor to the two-year-old 6 Gen 1. However, how big is the performance difference? What new features does the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 bring to the table? Well, in short, nothing meaningful. To answer the question in detail, I dissect the latest Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset, and here’s what I honestly think!
Just a Slightly Overclocked Snapdragon 6 Gen 1?
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 includes four Cortex-A78 performance cores clocked at 2.4GHz and three Cortex-A55 efficiency cores clocked at 1.8GHz. Moreover, the chipset is based on a 4nm process, similar to the 6 Gen 1. Side-by-side, here’s how the two chipsets compare:
| Specs | Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 | Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Fabrication Process | 4nm | 4nm |
| CPU | 4x Cortex-A78 @ 2.4Ghz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8Ghz | 4x Cortex-A78 @ 2.2Ghz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8Ghz |
| GPU | Adreno 710 | Adreno 710 |
| RAM | Up to 3200 MHz LPDDR5 | Up to 3200 MHz LPDDR5 |
| Display | Full HD+ at 120 Hz | Full HD+ at 120 Hz |
| ISP | 12-bit | 12-bit |
| Camera | 200 MP, 48 MP Zero Shutter Lag | 200 MP, 48 MP Zero Shutter Lag |
| Video | 4K @ 30 fps | 4K @ 30 fps |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Charging | QuickCharge 4+ | QuickCharge 4+ |
The difference is as much as the Snapdragon 695 had with the Snapdragon 6s Gen 3. That is to say, there’s no major difference here. Instead of the performance cores being clocked at 2.2GHz, the 6 Gen 3 takes it up to 2.4GHz.
So, essentially, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 is merely a 6 Gen 1 on a pinch of steroids. You get to see identical camera and video capabilities as well as connectivity support, thus, the 6 Gen 3 does not bring anything new to the table.
While Qualcomm does say that the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3’s on-device AI delivers 20% better AI performance, I doubt if that’s an actual improvement. If it is, only a series of AI tests will be able to clear that out for us. Bottomline is…
Qualcomm’s Duping Customers with a Name Change
A couple of months ago, when I tried explaining the Qualcomm chipset naming scheme, I realized how much of a maze it actually is. So now, we have the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 and 6s Gen 3, but no 6 Gen 2 series chipset? And, as it turns out, the 6 Gen 3 is only a slightly overclocked 6 Gen 1. What’s Qualcomm up to with its lower-end chipsets? Is it fine to let the American chip maker simply dupe customers with an ungrateful clock speed boost and name change?
To make matters worse, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 from the upper-end Snapdragon 7-series also comes very close to the 6 Gen 3 in terms of performance. The only difference between the two is that instead of the four efficiency cores being clocked at 1.8GHz, the 7s Gen 2 has them clocked at 1.95GHz.
In addition, all three chipsets use the same Adreno 710 GPU as well. However, the 7s Gen 2 can support displays of up to FHD+ at 144Hz.
With each passing day, Qualcomm is only making the naming scheme more convoluted than it has to be. Gone are the good old days when you knew that the Snapdragon 888 would definitely be an upgrade from the Snapdragon 870.
While it’s not currently known which phone will be the first to be powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3, you already know that it will essentially be as powerful as a two-year-old phone powered by the 6 Gen 1 with no substantial gain. And, from the looks of it, the processor’s existence doesn’t make any sense to me.
What do you think of the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3? Do you think it’s pointless as well? If not, why so? Drop your thoughts in the comments down below!
