Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Surges Ahead, But Skepticism Looms Over Alleged Benchmark Leaks

Performance speculations surrounding the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 suggest that Qualcomm's first smartphone SoC with proprietary cores would be faster than Apple's M2, but only on the GPU side, and only in one benchmark.

However, we now have what appears to be the Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core from the same chipset, and the scores show that it not only outperforms the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but its multi-threaded results compete with the M3. The AnTuTu results were also released, so let us dig into the details.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Alleged Geekbench 6 Results Show 46 Percent Multi-Core Lead Against Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

In terms of Geekbench 6 findings, @negativeonehero reported on X that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 achieved single-core and multi-core scores of 2,845 and 10,628, respectively. Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which scored 7,249 when running on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is 46 percent faster in the multi-threaded test and considerably faster in the single-core test.

One reason the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 purportedly achieved such a high score, despite its “2 + 6” arrangement, is that the SoC is rumored to have only 'Phoenix' performance cores. It appears that, like the Dimensity 9300, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will lack efficiency cores, which will improve multi-core performance at the expense of battery consumption.

Fortunately, the SoC is supposed to be mass-produced on TSMC's 3nm 'N3E' lithography. Thus, the increased efficiency of this lithography may overcome the disadvantages of having only performance cores as part of the CPU cluster.

When compared to Apple's M3, the latter is only slightly faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in both single-core and multi-core results, demonstrating that Qualcomm's decision to switch to a custom CPU design was the right one all along, even if it means phone makers must pay a higher price than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

Deciphering the Real Performance Behind Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Leaks

Another thing noticed was that the AnTuTu result on the left mentions the codename “Lahaina,” which is assigned to the Snapdragon 888, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is identified by the codename “Pakala.” Assuming no explanation is provided, we must conclude that these scores are edited and thus fake, as per WCCFTech.

According to one source, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 was tested at 4.00GHz; hence, the single-core and multi-core scores could potentially be based on this clock speed.

However, we want our readers to take this benchmark leak with a grain of salt because there have been numerous instances where the numbers turned out to be blatant lies. While we will continue to look for more information, it is important to note that manipulated scores will continue to be peddled online.

Photo: Masaru Kamikura, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons