The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 disappoints in early real-world gaming tests

[Redaktion]

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is Qualcomm's most powerful chipset yet. On paper, at least, as a gaming test has shown that the chipset fails to keep up in terms of sustained performance, as it succumbs to high temperatures, heavy power consumption, and significant throttling less than five minutes in.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Snapdragon-8-Gen-1-disappoints-in-early-real-world-gaming-tests.588442.0.html

[Lorenzo E Felser III]

While the performance of the SD8G1, may in fact be disappointing, I think this is more of a commentary on the phone being tested than the SOC itself. So far this is the only phone to be tested with this SOC. The method of regulating temperatures in this device are obviously less than optimum. Many tests were run on the reference device with better results. As well as the "rumors" of upcoming devices that are in testing with better thermal management than current devices with SD888. So I guess we will see what other devices bring to the table to handle the thermals that everyone knew was going to be an issues after the last couple generations of the SD 8 series SOCs.

[missingxtension]

According to Charlie at semiaccurate, qualcomm fired their entire cpu department, so it should take generations for another good cpu. I however think  the problem is because of prices. Phones have gone up to double the price and the returns have diminished. Megapixels, megahertz, core count, ram, refresh rate, ppi and all that doesn't  really really matter anymore. Then we have the other problem of the operating systems being so bloated, we still don't have devices that run decent on low end hardware. Why does android need so much resources to run? Windows runs better in lower end hardware. Instead newer versions of android continue to push the upgrade cycle at a frantic pase. Why so fast?

[Kangal]

Interesting video. Here's the recap:

GeekBench 5 (Single-core)
D9000: 1287 score, 3.5 Watts, 368 Efficiency
QC 8g1: 1200 score, 4.2 Watts, 286 Efficiency
QSD 888: 1135 score, 3.8 Watts, 299 Efficiency

GeekBench 5 (Multi-thread)
D9000: 4474 score, 9.8 Watts, 457 Efficiency
QC 8g1: 3810 score, 11.1 Watts, 343 Efficiency
QSD 888: 3753 score, 8.9 Watts, 422 Efficiency

GFXBench Aztec Ruins (High/1440p Offscreen)
D9000: 43 fps, 8.2 Watts, 5.24 Efficiency
QC 8g1: 47 fps, 11.2 Watts, 4.20 Efficiency
QSD 888: 30 fps, 9.0 Watts, 3.34 Efficiency

Genshin Impact (Quality Mode, Initial Performance)
D9000: 60 fps, 6.8 Watts, drops 1.1 Watts, 7 minutes then throttles
QC 8g1: 60 fps, 7.5 Watts, drops 1.2 Watts, 3 min then dips but maintains
QSD 888: 60 fps, 7.5 Watts, drops 1.6 Watts, 6 minutes then throttles

Genshin Impact (Quality Mode, after 15min throttling)
D9000: 48 fps, 5.7 Watts, 8.42 Efficiency, Resolution 1422x640
QC 8g1: 55 fps, 6.3 Watts, 8.73 Efficiency, Resolution 1422x640
QSD 888: 48 fps, 5.9 Watts, 8.14 Efficiency, Resolution 1600x720

[RinzImpulse]

Why does android need so much resources to run?

OEMs bloatware is the only reason

Sony phones are fast and great despite having less RAM than the other flagships because they're using stock android with not many bloatware

Windows runs better in lower end hardware.

LOL, where the hell you hear this. It runs s**t on Celeron and Pentium, also older than skylake core series. Especially, PCs and Laptops that are still using Hard drive

[crissl]

While the performance of the SD8G1, may in fact be disappointing, I think this is more of a commentary on the phone being tested than the SOC itself. So far this is the only phone to be tested with this SOC. The method of regulating temperatures in this device are obviously less than optimum. Many tests were run on the reference device with better results. As well as the "rumors" of upcoming devices that are in testing with better thermal management than current devices with SD888. So I guess we will see what other devices bring to the table to handle the thermals that everyone knew was going to be an issues after the last couple generations of the SD 8 series SOCs.

I certainly hope you're right but the latest video made by the same person doesn't bring any good news. Aside from the heating issue, the Big & Mid Core performances and especially their efficiencies are really terrible. (definitely not device specific)

I was really looking forward to buying a new phone next year but I'm not even sure if there will be an improved gen 2 produced by TSMC at all....

[Kenneth Johnson]

Not one mention of type of cooling it has does this phone have vapor chamber? I would guess no... lets see how the s22 ultra withvapor chamber does then we can judge it.Im sure these gaming phone companys wil cool this chip its a beast of course its gona get hotter....

[ChrisGX]

1. What Golden Reviewer said was that his 'first impression is not that bad'.
2. All flagship phones throttle--that goes for every phone equipped with the Apple A15, MediaTek Dimensity 9000, Samsung Exynos 2200 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The fault here, if you want to call it that, is the handset form factor cannot dissipate heat fast enough to maintain framerates of demanding games at peak levels for long periods.
3. The GPUs in premium mobile SoCs are powerful. The Adreno GPU in the SD8 Gen 1 does use more power than either the Apple A series GPUs or ARM's Mali GPU and that will make thermal and power management very challenging for smartphones equipped with the Snapdragon chip.

Notwithstanding the somewhat elevated power consumption of the SD8 GEN 1 GPU there is nothing surprising or disappointing about any of the reported performance numbers. And, all smartphones are throttling in order to conserve battery and control thermal runaway.

[YUKI93]

I'm taking that result with a pinch of salt. It's all mainly about software optimization. Different smartphone brands have different types of software optimization despite the same hardware.

[YUKI93]

Why does android need so much resources to run?

OEMs bloatware is the only reason

Sony phones are fast and great despite having less RAM than the other flagships because they're using stock android with not many bloatware

ASUS and HMD Nokia phones aren't too bad either since they also don't have any bloatware. At least Sony and ASUS do make a flagship-grade model, unlike HMD Nokia. Even the 8.3 5G is still out there without any news about its potential successor.

Windows runs better in lower end hardware.

LOL, where the hell you hear this. It runs s**t on Celeron and Pentium, also older than skylake core series. Especially, PCs and Laptops that are still using Hard drive

Maybe with the previous days of Celeron and Pentium, even from as far back as 2015 since I used to own an ASUS laptop with an Intel Celeron CPU at that time. That said, the latest-gen iteration is not a bad performer for normal daily tasks. I just hope that laptop brands start using 2.5" SATA SSD as the main primary hard drive for budget and entry-level models.