Qualcomm might have a new Snapdragon 8 chipset in the works

Later this year, possibly towards the later part of 2024, Qualcomm will debut the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset. But in the meantime, the company could be working on a new Snapdragon 8 chipset that could position itself in between the Gen 2 and Gen 3 models. This is according to a post on Weibo by Digital Chat Station.

According to the post, this chipset has the model designation SM8635. It will be built using TSMC’s 4nm process and will feature a Cortex-X4 core clocked at 2.9GHz. It will also come with an Adreno 735 GPU.

For context, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 also uses a Cortex-X4 core. It is clocked faster at 3.3MHz and also comes with an Adreno 750 GPU. Based on the rumored specs of this new chipset, it will be slightly less powerful, but it could also potentially be more affordable. We did hear a recent report about how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is more expensive than its predecessor.

By making a slightly less powerful variant, it could lower the price of the chipset while offering close-to-flagship level performance. It is more powerful than the Gen 2 which was already a pretty great chipset, so it’s not a huge compromise. There’s no word on when the new chipset will launch, so we’ll have to wait and see.