Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs A16 Bionic

We compared the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (Adreno 750) with the older 6-core Apple A16 Bionic (Apple A16 GPU) SoC. Here you will find the pros and cons of each chip, technical specs, and comprehensive tests in benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Geekbench.

Review

General comparison of performance, power consumption, and other indicators
CPU Performance
Single and multi-core processor tests
Gaming Performance
GPU performance in games and OpenCL/Vulkan
Battery life
Efficiency of battery consumption
NanoReview Score
Overall chip score

Key Differences

Main differences and advantages of each chip
Pros of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
  • Performs 55% better in floating-point computations
  • Supports 50% higher memory bandwidth (76.8 against 51.2 GB/s)
  • Shows significantly better (up to 44%) AnTuTu 11 score – 2345K vs 1626K
  • Has 2 more cores
  • Better instruction set architecture
Pros of Apple A16 Bionic
  • Higher GPU frequency (~40%)
  • 5% higher CPU clock speed (3460 vs 3300 MHz)

Benchmarks

Performance tests in popular benchmarks

AnTuTu 11

The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
2345563
1626008
CPU 700525 432740
GPU 805478 490354
Memory 296043 216774
UX 543517 486140
Total score 2345563 1626008
Samples [443 tests] [36 tests]
AnTuTu results from iOS and Android are not directly comparable! They won't affect NanoReview scores.

GeekBench 6

The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Single-Core Score
Multi-Core Score
Asset compression 256.8 MB/sec 234.4 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 190.9 pages/sec 155.2 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 209.1 Mpixels/sec 157.5 Mpixels/sec
Image detection 168.6 images/sec 149.7 images/sec
HDR 208.6 Mpixels/sec 202.6 Mpixels/sec
Background blur 24 images/sec 25.9 images/sec
Photo processing 63.6 images/sec 76.8 images/sec
Ray tracing 7.27 Mpixels/sec 6.74 Mpixels/sec
Samples 139 tests 24 tests
Compute Score (GPU)
A16 Bionic +49%
22851
Background blur 26.9 images/sec 39.5 images/sec
Face detection 13.2 images/sec 50.9 images/sec
Horizon detection 0.7 Gpixels/sec 0.73 Gpixels/sec
Edge detection 0.61 Gpixels/sec 1.05 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 0.98 Gpixels/sec 1.22 Gpixels/sec
Feature matching 0.18 Gpixels/sec 0.29 Gpixels/sec
Stereo matching 43.4 Gpixels/sec 70.4 Gpixels/sec
Particle physics 3083.6 FPS 2162.5 FPS
API OpenCL Metal
Samples 90 tests 12 tests
Compute results use different APIs (Metal vs Vulkan/OpenCL) and are not directly comparable!

3DMark

A cross-platform benchmark that assesses graphics performance in Vulkan (Metal)
3DMark Steel Nomad Light
Score 1652 -
Stability 79% -
Graphics test 12 FPS -
3DMark Solar Bay
Score 8190 4266
Stability 72% 74%
Graphics test 31 FPS 16 FPS
Section 1 36 FPS 20 FPS
Section 2 31 FPS 16 FPS
Section 3 26 FPS 12 FPS
3DMark Wild Life Extreme
Score 4676 3335
Stability - 71%
Graphics test 27 FPS 19 FPS

PCMark 3.0

Benchmark for evaluating overall system performance in everyday workloads
PCMark 3.0
Web score 16536 -
Video editing score 7905 -
Data manipulation score 14260 -
Photo editing score 31248 -
Writing score 19168 -
Phones tested 41 models -

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-09 (Lunka)AnTuTu2094129
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-06 (Asfi)AnTuTu2176056
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-06 (Ashish)AnTuTu2259113
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-05 (Бамса с24)AnTuTu2278769
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-05 -> Rabbit5656AnTuTu2327770
Apple A16 Bionic
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-14 (ZUSEPRO)AnTuTu1603687
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-31 (LORDroid)AnTuTu1445126
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-16 (Ronaldo)AnTuTu1626008
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-15 (Julian Ludwig)GeekBench GPU24336
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-15 (Julian Ludwig)GeekBench CPU2615 / 6477

Specifications

Full list of technical specifications of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and A16 Bionic

CPU

Architecture 1x 3.3 GHz – Cortex-X4
3x 3.15 GHz – Cortex-A720
2x 2.96 GHz – Cortex-A720
2x 2.27 GHz – Cortex-A520
2x 3.46 GHz – Everest
4x 2.02 GHz – Sawtooth
Cores 8 6
Frequency 3300 MHz 3460 MHz
Instruction set ARMv9.2-A ARMv8.6-A
L1 cache - 256 KB
L2 cache 1 MB 16 MB
L3 cache 12 MB -
Process 4 nanometers 4 nanometers
Transistor count - 16 billion
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 8 W 8 W
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC

Graphics

GPU name Adreno 750 Apple A16 GPU
Architecture Adreno 700 Apple Bionic GPU
GPU frequency 903-1000 MHz 1398 MHz
Pipelines 6 5
Shading units 256 128
Total shaders 1536 640
FLOPS 2774 Gigaflops 1789.4 Gigaflops
Vulkan version 1.3 -
OpenCL version 2.0 -
DirectX version 12.1 -

AI Accelerator

Neural processor (NPU) Hexagon Apple Neural Engine
NPU theoretical performance - 17 TOPS

Memory

Memory type LPDDR5X LPDDR5
Memory frequency 4800 MHz 3200 MHz
Bus 4x 16 Bit 4x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 76.8 Gb/s 51.2 Gb/s
Max size 24 GB 6 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Storage type UFS 4.0, UFS 4.1 NVMe
Max display resolution 3840 x 2160 2796 x 1290
Max camera resolution 1x 200MP 1x 48MP
Video capture 8K at 30FPS, 4K at 120FPS 4K at 60FPS
Video playback 8K at 60FPS, 4K at 120FPS 4K at 60FPS
Video codecs - H.264
- H.265
- AV1
- VP8
- VP9
- H.264
- H.265
- VP8
- VP9
- Motion JPEG
Audio codecs - AAC
- AIFF
- CAF
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV
- AAC
- AAX
- AAX+
- AC-3
- AIFF
- CAF
- E-AC-3
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV

Connectivity

Modem Snapdragon X75 -
4G support LTE Cat. 24 LTE Cat. 24
5G support Yes Yes
Download speed Up to 10000 Mbps Up to 7500 Mbps
Upload speed Up to 3500 Mbps Up to 3500 Mbps
Wi-Fi 7 6
Bluetooth 5.4 5.3
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, NAVIC GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS

Info

Announced October 2023 September 2022
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number SM8650-AB, SM8650-AC APL1W10
Official page Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 official site -
Successor - Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 - Apple A19 Pro
Further details
Notes on Snapdragon 8 Gen 3:
    - Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy has a 100 MHz higher CPU and GPU clock speed. It has a higher GPU performance rate of up to 3072 Gigaflops.

Cast your vote

So, which SoC would you choose?
1845 (71.1%)
750 (28.9%)
Total votes: 2595

Comments

Please give your opinion on the comparison of A16 Bionic and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, or ask any questions
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Avatar
abhinash June 15, 2024 at 06:41 AM
Snapdragon Gen 3 processor is far better than Apple's A16 Bionic. Apple should improve their chipset, not branding of Apple logo.
+155 Reply
Avatar
loras February 8, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Dude, A16 is a year older
+50 Reply
Avatar
sigmafxyt March 22, 2025 at 09:46 AM
loras , Lol he didn't have time to even check it.
+49 Reply