Farewell to ARM: Tipster says Qualcomm will debut its own Oryon cores for Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip

Earlier this month we passed along some rumors about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC that will be produced by TSMC using its 4nm process node (which is actually related to the 5nm node). The chip will reportedly use a 1-4-3 configuration made up of a high-performance X-4 core running at a clock speed of 3.70GHz, four performance cores, and three efficiency cores. Perhaps we will see a repeat of what was done this year and an overclocked version of the component, known as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, will be headed to the Galaxy S24 line in 2024.

A tweet from a tipster with the handle Revegnus (via Wccftech) compares specs and benchmark test results between next year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 2025’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The tipster says that the latter will be produced using TSMC’s N3E process node. That is the foundry’s second-generation 3nm node which will deliver increased performance and energy-efficiency improvements better than what was generated by the first-generation 3nm chipsets. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC will use Qualcomm’s own Oryon cores replacing ARM’s CPU architecture which could result in as much as a 40% improvement in multi-core performance.

In January 2021, Qualcomm bought Nuvia, the company behind the Oryon cores, for $1.5 billion in an effort to take on Apple’s M2 chip. Revegnus says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can score 6500 on the Geekbench 5 multi-core benchmark test. He sees the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 scoring above the 9000 mark (9100 to be exact) which would give it a 40% higher score than the M2. The difference is that the M2 isn’t expected to find its way under the hood of any iPhone model while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could end up powering the Galaxy S25 line.

Revegnus also says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be an octa-core chip with a configuration that includes two Nuvia Phoenix (or Oryon) performance cores and six Nuvia Phoenix (or Oryon) M’ efficiency cores.