Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: What has changed in the flagship chip?
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is a chipset that has been plagued with problems since its inception. More than ever, we saw OEMs jump to try and deal with its inefficiencies through software controls, with some opting to throttle it under certain conditions. Others, like OnePlus, throttled it overall, and to cut a long story short, it’s been problematic, to say the least. The Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 came in to attempt to right all wrongs, and while it didn’t quite do that, it got pretty close.
As for the reason why people believe the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is so much better than its non-Plus counterpart? The Plus was manufactured on TSMC’s N4 process. There aren’t really any official sources that lay bare Qualcomm’s dissatisfaction with Samsung Foundry when it came to chip production, but reading between the lines, it’s been clear for a long time that there are problems over in the Samsung camp.
It goes from bad to worse though. The MediaTek Dimensity 9000, produced by TSMC, ran rings around Qualcomm’s own efficiency from user testing. It’s a perfect storm that clearly points to one thing — Samsung Foundry, for whatever reason, produced subpar chipsets in 2021 and 2022. We tested the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 in the Asus SM8475 Engineering Platform when the chip was released, and now we’ve had time to properly use it in a few different phones. One question remains though: how exactly does it fare when compared to its non-Plus variant? We put it to the test.
About this comparison: We compared the OnePlus 10 Pro to the OnePlus 10T. Both devices were factory reset, no Google accounts were linked, and Wi-Fi was only enabled to install update packages for benchmarks that required it. Benchmarking applications were installed via adb, and all tests were run on airplane mode with device batteries above 50%. Both devices had OnePlus’ performance mode enabled to remove the artificial limit on the clock speed of these chipsets.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1: Specifications
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 | |
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| Memory | LPDDR5 @ 3200MHz, 16GB | LPDDR5 @ 3200MHz, 16GB |
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| Charging | Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 | Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 |
| Connectivity | Location: Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, Dual Frequency GNSS support
Wi-Fi: Qualcomm FastConnect 6900; Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6; 2.4/5GHz/6GHz Bands; 20/40/80/160 MHz Channels; DBS (2×2 + 2×2), TWT, WPA3, 8×8 MU-MIMO Bluetooth: Version 5.3, aptX Voice, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, and LE audio |
Location: Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, Dual Frequency GNSS support
Wi-Fi: Qualcomm FastConnect 6900; Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6; 2.4/5GHz/6GHz Bands; 20/40/80/160 MHz Channels; DBS (2×2 + 2×2), TWT, WPA3, 8×8 MU-MIMO Bluetooth: Version 5.3, aptX Voice, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, and LE audio |
| Manufacturing Process | 4nm Samsung Foundry | 4nm TSMC |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Fundamental differences
Before we get into comparing these two chipsets, it’s important to point out that these two chipsets are basically the exact same. On a design level, they have the same cores, the same modem, and the same GPU. The only real differences are the increases in clock speeds, and if there are efficiency improvements, that’s likely because Qualcomm was able to push the clock speeds up a little bit higher and still maintain a reduced power draw.
The reason for this is pretty simple: the final steps in the frequency multiplier use the most energy. This is why OnePlus was able to get a lot of mileage by simply throttling the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 at all times by a little bit below its maximum clock speed. Qualcomm was able to get a greatly reduced energy draw from TSMC’s production, and the company likely opted to push for a higher maximum frequency while still retaining some efficiency improvements.
Given that a clock speed increase is typical of a “Plus” chipset, it would have been quite strange to have a Plus version that had literally no improvements aside from efficiency.
Core-wise, the Prime core on the regular 8 Gen 1 is clocked at 2.995GHz, jumping up to 3.2GHz on the Plus. Apple’s A15 performance cores are clocked at 3.2GHz, for reference. The three Kryo Performance cores use ARM’s Cortex-A710 design, and they are clocked at 2.5GHz on the regular 8 Gen 1, which bumps up to 2.8GHz on the Plus. As for the three Kryo Efficiency cores, they are based on the new Cortex-A510 design and also get a boost from 1.79GHz to 2GHz.
We believe that the way many OEMs managed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 series may be heavy-handed under intense load. That’s why we endeavored to use two devices from the same OEM — how companies approach chipsets may differ from company to company, whereas we believe that there will be a retained philosophy across both of these devices and their tunings. This means that we should get a more accurate representation of the capabilities of these chipsets relative to each other.
Benchmarks Overview
- AnTuTu: This is a holistic benchmark. AnTuTu tests the CPU, GPU, and memory performance, while including both abstract tests and, as of late, relatable user experience simulations (for example, the subtest which involves scrolling through a ListView). The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations.
- GeekBench: A CPU-centric test that uses several computational workloads including encryption, compression (text and images), rendering, physics simulations, computer vision, ray tracing, speech recognition, and convolutional neural network inference on images. The score breakdown gives specific metrics. The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations, placing a large emphasis on integer performance (65%), then float performance (30%), and finally cryptography (5%).
- GFXBench: Aims to simulate video game graphics rendering using the latest APIs. Lots of onscreen effects and high-quality textures. Newer tests use Vulkan while legacy tests use OpenGL ES 3.1. The outputs are frames during test and frames per second (the other number divided by the test length, essentially), instead of a weighted score.
- Aztec Ruins: These tests are the most computationally heavy ones offered by GFXBench. Currently, top mobile chipsets cannot sustain 30 frames per second. Specifically, the test offers really high polygon count geometry, hardware tessellation, high-resolution textures, global illumination and plenty of shadow mapping, copious particle effects, as well as bloom and depth of field effects. Most of these techniques will stress the shader compute capabilities of the processor.
- Manhattan ES 3.0/3.1: This test remains relevant given that modern games have already arrived at its proposed graphical fidelity and implement the same kinds of techniques. It features complex geometry employing multiple render targets, reflections (cubic maps), mesh rendering, many deferred lighting sources, as well as bloom and depth of field in a post-processing pass.
- CPU Throttling Test: This app repeats a simple multithreaded test in C for as short as 15 minutes, though we ran it for 30 minutes. The app charts the score over time so you can see when the phone starts throttling. The score is measured in GIPS — or billion operations per second.
- Burnout Benchmark: Loads different SoC components with heavy workloads to analyze their power consumption, thermal throttling, and their maximum performance. It uses Android’s BatteryManager API to calculate the watts being used during testing, which can be used to understand the battery drain on a smartphone.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Computational workload
We first tested both of these chipsets against each other by testing their computational capabilities. We used Geekbench 5, ensuring that each device was at a normal ambient temperature with airplane mode enabled.
From the above, we can note that the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 boasts some pretty generous improvements in its computational abilities. In multi-core, we see a 15% increase, though in single-core we only see a 5% increase. Still, it’s clear that there are already improvements in the abilities of this chipset from the get-go.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Power efficiency
Burnout Benchmark allows us to easily measure the power consumed by a chipset in a smartphone. When we tested the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 initially, we spoke with the developer, Andrey Ignatov, to get a sense of how the app works. He told us to run the app with a fully charged device on the lowest brightness and with airplane mode enabled, and so, all of the data collected here is under those conditions. Ignatov told us the following tests are run on different components of the SoC as part of Burnout Benchmark:
- GPU: Parallel vision-based computations using OpenCL
- CPU: Multi-threaded computations largely involving Arm Neon
instructions - NPU: AI models with typical machine learning ops
First and foremost, here are the power metrics that we collected.
The maximum wattage of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in these conditions was 14.46W. A standard 5,000 mAh battery would last continuously for just shy of 3.5 hours when pushed to this consistent maximum. While that is an unrealistic condition to be in (particularly because of throttling, as well as the fact that nobody will really use their phone like that), it helps to visualize what kind of battery drain that is.
In contrast, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 drained at 11.5W at its peak drainage, according to these measurements. That equates to roughly 4.3 hours of usage in a smartphone that packs a 5,000 mAh battery.
Here, however, we can see that the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is also more powerful than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 by a significant amount. The graphs above can be shown relative to the wattage calculated above, and you’ll see that while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 drains more energy, it isn’t as powerful computationally. This shows how the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is more efficient, and a lower wattage means less heat, too.
The table below shows the maximum capabilities of each chipset in these conditions, and also shows the percentage increase that we measured.
| Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 | Percentage change (from 8 Gen 1 to 8 Plus Gen 1) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU FPS | 13.65 | 17.76 | 30% increase |
| GPU FPS | 15.34 | 16.61 | 8% increase |
| Maximum wattage | 14.46W | 11.5W | 26% decrease |
It’s worth keeping in mind that while these values differ slightly from Qualcomm’s own measurements, this can be accounted for by software or even just by chance. We ran this test multiple times, and the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 pulled significantly ahead in each iteration, with the higher power draw of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 also being a significant factor.
It’s also here where the devices used may affect some of these results. While we are confident in saying that the energy decrease is reflected here, as it was when we compared the Asus engineering platform device to the RedMagic 7 Pro, energy usage may differ from device to device thanks to other aspects like the display, connectivity, and more.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Graphics
GFXBench is an application that can test the graphical capabilities of a smartphone’s GPU through a number of different tests. We ran five different tests here, with the most computationally taxing being the 1440p Aztec tests. We see a roughly 10% increase across the board in every single one of these tests, falling in line both with Qualcomm’s expectations of the chipset and in our GPU testing in Burnout Benchmark.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: CPU Throttling Test
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is a thermally inefficient chipset from everything that we’ve seen so far, and the ultimate test of that is CPU Throttling Test. This test was run on both devices side by side at the same ambient temperature, and it’s clear that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 both performed better, and for longer. While they throttled to basically the same percentage in the end, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 kept a higher performance for longer, and its minimum GIPS was nearly 10% higher than what the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 could achieve.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Antutu
Antutu is a holistic benchmark that tests all aspects of a smartphone. While the total number it calculates doesn’t really give you anything more than a number to compare to other smartphones, it still gives you a rough idea of how much better one phone can be than another in a computational sense. It’s certainly not a guiding light by any stretch of the imagination, but Antutu still has its place in the industry. We see a 6% increase in the numbers here, in favor of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is undoubtedly a winner
No matter what metric you compare both of these chipsets, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is a winner on all accounts. It’s more efficient, it’s more powerful, and you’ll have less heat generated. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, in contrast, is a relatively thermally inefficient chipset that drains a lot of energy. Both are powerful chipsets, but given the steps that companies have had to take to tame the 8 Gen 1 this generation, it’s clear that there’s something going on in Samsung’s fabrication processes.
What can you take away from this comparison? With all other factors being equal, you should definitely prefer using the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
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