Qualcomm quietly unveiled its newest chipset, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3, over the weekend. The new platform, designed for mid-range devices, surprisingly skips a generation, replacing the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1. It appears the company bypassed a second-generation version of the 4nm chip.
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 boasts enhanced AI capabilities, promising better performance for activity tracking and noise reduction during calls. While similar to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, it does come with some reductions in CPU and display capabilities.
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3, while similar to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, has some key differences. Both chips feature an octa-core CPU with four Cortex-A78 cores at 2.4 GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores. However, the 6 Gen 3’s efficiency cores run at a slightly slower 1.8 GHz compared to the 7s Gen 2’s 1.95 GHz.
Another distinction lies in display support. The 6 Gen 3 can handle 1080p resolutions at a 120Hz refresh rate, while the 7s go up to 144Hz.
The new chip utilizes an Adreno 710 GPU and supports both LPDDR4X and LPDDR5 RAM, but only UFS 3.1 storage. Connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E.
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 supports continuous reads from a single 48MP sensor, dual sensors at 32MP and 16MP, or even a single sensor capturing images up to a massive 200MP.
Despite the chipset’s appearance on Qualcomm’s website, the company has yet to officially announce its release or provide a timeline for when it will be available to device manufacturers.