Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 will be postponed

Dubbed “Hamoa,” Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 represents the inaugural SoC that utilizes the custom Oryon core, harnessing the technological advances procured from their acquisition of Nuvia. Qualcomm harbors high aspirations for this chipset, envisioning it as a formidable rival to Apple’s proprietary M-series chips. Though Qualcomm heralded the arrival of the custom Oryon core last year, the debut of devices equipped with the 4th generation Snapdragon 8cx is slated for 2024.

According to Wccftech, the Oryon core, which was the handiwork of the Nuvia team, hasn’t quite lived up to expectations. Early engineering samples were beleaguered with performance glitches, and lamentably, these issues persist unresolved. The specifics of the quandaries remain shrouded in ambiguity, but fingers seem to point toward the Nuvia contingent as the culprit.

Prior disclosures have suggested that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 would be proffered in three distinct configurations, with the CPU being the primary differentiator. The most potent variant, the SC8380 / SC8380XP, boasts 8 performance cores coupled with 4 efficiency cores, totaling 12 cores. The SC8370 / SC8370XP scales this down to 6 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, resulting in 10 cores. The SC8350 / SC8350X takes this reduction a step further with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, culminating in 8 cores. Regrettably, the 12-core engineering samples encountered both single and multi-core performance hitches on Geekbench 5, with Qualcomm yet to pinpoint a viable remedy.

Though myriad chip design conglomerates endeavor to craft their distinct cores leveraging Arm’s instruction set, aiming to rival Apple’s M-series bespoke chips, the journey is strewn with hurdles. Qualcomm’s tribulations aren’t isolated incidents. Samsung, after numerous abortive attempts, pivoted to Arm’s canonical design. Google, too, deferred its custom design strategy by a year, and the outcomes seem less than stellar.