QUALCOMM

Company announces Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 chipset with OnePlus, Realme, and Sharp smartphones teased

Qualcomm has revealed the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3, the second chipset it has presented this week after the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. Topping out the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 series, the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 actually shares plenty of features with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 but with a few cutbacks that will allow OnePlus, Realme, and Sharp to release mid-range smartphones.

Only a few days have passed since the introduction of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, a cheaper alternative to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Nonetheless, Qualcomm has sought to release the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3, which it has confirmed will debut in upcoming OnePlus, Realme, and Sharp handsets. In short, Qualcomm bills the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 as delivering 15% CPU and 45% GPU performance improvements over the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2 while being 5% more efficient to boot.

However, the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 shares more components with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 than the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2. As far as we can tell, Qualcomm has distinguished the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 from the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 in three overarching areas. On the one hand, it appears that the pair share identical CPU cores. The Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 features lower CPU core clocks across the board though, with 6.6%, 7.1% and 5% downclocks across its prime, performance and efficiency clusters, respectively, compared to the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.

On the other hand, the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 lacks the real-time hardware accelerated ray tracing and AV1 decoding support that the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 offers. Additionally, the former can power up to QHD+ displays running at 120 Hz, 24 Hz lower than the latter. Moreover, the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 utilises the Snapdragon X63, which is already available in the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3.

For some reason, Qualcomm has limited the Snapdragon X63 to 4.2 Gbps peak download speeds in the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 though, unlike the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3. With that being said, the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 contains various improvements over the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, including Wi-Fi 7 annd Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity. Please see our table below for an overview of the differences between the three chipsets.

Alex Alderson