The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 used by Samsung will also have an overclocked GPU

Some smartphones coming with the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 have already passed through Geekbench, for example Galaxy S23, S23+ and S23 Ultra. When they did, the benchmark reported the following frequencies for the three clusters: 3.36GHz Prime core, 2.80GHz Performance core, and 2.02GHz Efficiency core.

It’s not just Samsung’s flagships, however, there are a lot of upcoming phones that will feature the 8 Gen 2 chipset. And we’ve seen the benchmarks of some of those as well, for example the vivo X90 Pro and iQOO 11. But look carefully: the frequency of the Core Prime on these is listed as 3.19 GHz. This is also the value announced by Qualcomm, 3.1872 GHz was the exact figure they provided. So why do Samsungs run at higher clocks?

The first Geekbench results from Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones

A few days ago Ice universe it said the European version will use an “exclusive high-frequency version” of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. However, the benchmarks we’ve seen so far have come from US models, so this is likely a global thing rather than a Europe-only thing.

Now the leakster adds more details: the Prime CPU core will in fact be clocked at 3.36 GHz instead of 3.2 GHz. But the GPU will also run faster: 719 MHz, up from 680 MHz.

Qualcomm has occasionally released “AC” versions that run at higher clocks than the base chip. For example, the Snapdragon 855 has a model number SM8150, the SM8150-AC is the 855+, which boosted the 2.84GHz Prime core to 2.96GHz. The 8th Gen 2 announced this week is the SM8550-AB, so this should be the SM8550-AC.

It’s unclear whether this chip intended for the Galaxy S23 series will be dubbed the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 or something else entirely. But it seems that Qualcomm and TSMC have found enough room for a decent overclock.

Qualcomm’s official numbers state that the 8 Gen 2 CPU is 35% faster than its 8 Gen 1 counterpart, the GPU is 25% faster. Given the overclocking of both, this new version of the chip should be even faster. It’s hard to say how much faster it is, though, as it’s too early to read the benchmark results.