So far there has been very little information about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Outside of the accidental reveal of its codename (Sun), everything else has been speculation or rumor. Now, an intrepid Bilibili user (H/T https://twitter.com/negativeonehero/status/1785328708343218448) has benchmarked an early engineering sample of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
Firstly, the reference device is put to the test in what looks like AnTuTu, where it scores a measly 1,769,083 points. This is due to severe CPU throttling, something not entirely uncommon on pre-production hardware. A closer look at the CPU cores sheds light on their layout and clocks.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 was rumored to launch with 6 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores. A closer look at the video reveals that the six performance cores (Phoenix M) will have a maximum clock of 2.4 GHz, while the efficiency cores (Phoenix L) will be limited to 1.939 GHz. Later, we can see ” Sun for Arm x64″ in the video, further confirming the identity of the chip.
This is in line with previous reports about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. However, others claimed that the coveted 4.2 GHz figure would come at the cost of high voltage (1.3 V) and power consumption. Qualcomm will most likely reset the clocks later to keep the temperature under control.
The soon-to-be announced Dimensity 9300+ limits its Cortex-X4 core to just 3.4 GHz. Therefore, the Cortex-X5-powered MediaTek Dimensity 9400 and Exynos 2500 are unlikely to approach the 4.2 GHz mark. Instead, they will rely on solid IPC gains to offset raw watches.
