The spotlight is on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for Galaxy, which has recently surfaced online following its initial debut on Geekbench. This special variant, tailored for Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, displays slightly reduced performance metrics compared to its standard edition, primarily due to lower frequencies in its Performance (P) and Efficiency (E) cores. Despite these differences, the chip promises substantial future improvements with software optimizations.
The standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 has already shown impressive results in benchmark tests with the OnePlus 13 and a Qualcomm Reference Device, flaunting over a 30% performance boost. However, Apple’s A18 and A18 Pro have managed to outshine Qualcomm’s latest prowess. In comparison, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for Galaxy, when tested with Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, attained a Geekbench score of 3,096 in single-core and 9,080 in multi-core tests. Although these figures are lower than the standard version’s 3,296 and 10,049 respectively, they are expected to improve with further tweaks and optimizations.
Diving deeper into the Geekbench listing reveals that the P-core cluster runs at 4.19 GHz, slightly lower than the standard’s 4.32 GHz, and the E-core cluster is clocked at 2.90 GHz, down from 3.53 GHz. Notably, despite these lower speeds, the chip handles its boost clock efficiently without any throttling issues.
It’s important to note that these clock speeds are likely preliminary. Samsung has ample time to collaborate with Qualcomm for fine-tuning before the official launch of the Galaxy S25 lineup in early 2025. Consequently, we can expect the performance to enhance closer to the release.
As Qualcomm and Samsung continue to refine this partnership, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for Galaxy is poised to deliver robust performance enhancements, making the upcoming Galaxy S25 series a worthy contender in the high-end smartphone market.
