If you're interested in how the best Android phones coming out next year will perform, this week is a big one. Qualcomm, which makes the silicon that powers most of the top Android devices on the market, will hold its annual technology summit starting Monday (October 21). And we should be able to catch a glimpse of the next top-of-the-line system-on-chip that is ready to compete with Apple's A18 silicon.

Earlier this year, Qualcomm confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will appear at its annual conference in October, and the company's Snapdragon Summit site also notes that the next-generation Snapdragon chip is very much on the agenda for the week ahead . In other words, the time has finally come for Qualcomm to confirm what it has been working on and what it will mean for smartphone performance in the very near future.

The stakes are certainly high for Qualcomm and its upcoming mobile chipsets. Last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset outperformed the A16 Bionic and A17 Pro silicon that powers Apple's iPhone 15 lineup in several tests. The A18 chip in this fall's iPhone 16 models again established Apple's strength in overall performance, as shown in benchmark tests using Geekbench 6. However, Android phones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 continue to produce higher frame rates than the latest iPhones in major graphics tests.

In preparation for the Snapdragon Summit, here is what we know about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, along with leaked information and rumors about the chipset's potential performance. [Snapdragon Summit will take place Monday, October 21 through Wednesday, October 23. I will be in Maui to bring you the latest news from Qualcomm, but if you'd like, you can watch a live stream of the Snapdragon Summit keynote. The event will begin at 3pm ET / noon ET / 8pm ET on Monday.

Qualcomm had already hammered the cat out of the hat earlier this month about one of the big announcements surrounding its upcoming premium mobile chipset. As confirmed in a teaser video, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will feature an Oryon CPU, eliminating the Kryo CPU found in previous mobile chipsets.

Oryon debuted last year with the Snapdragon X Elite silicon for connected laptops. It is a CPU custom-designed by Qualcomm to improve performance, and the chipmaker is clearly hoping to bring this type of optimization to mobile system-on-chips. Nothing more has been said about Qualcomm's Oryon plans for mobile chips, but it is not hard to imagine that the CPU in the Snapdragon 8 is tailored for mobile devices.

Qualcomm teased one more detail when it talked about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 launch by the end of the year in February. This was a reference to the neural processing unit that is part of Qualcomm's system-on-chip. This is hardly a shock, as AI capabilities were a major focus of last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 release. And it is clear that device makers are eager to add AI capabilities to their phones.

Most of the information about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 comes from rumored specs and leaked benchmark scores. However, it does give an indication of what Qualcomm may have in store for next week's Tech Summit.

In addition to the Oryon CPU confirmed by Qualcomm, the purported specs posted online indicate that the new chipset will feature an Adreno 8 series GPU supporting resolutions up to 3840x2560 and refresh rates up to 144Hz It is supposed to be a Snapdragon 8 series GPU. The same leaker claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will feature LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 4.0 storage.

However, the leaks that have people talking are about Geekbench scores. It recorded a score of 3,236 in the single-core Geekbench 6 test.

Incidentally, this is 45% and 48% higher than the numbers recorded by the Galaxy S24 and OnePlus 12 with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, respectively. While our test is just shy of the A18-powered iPhone 16's result of 3,301, the leaked benchmark also shows a Geekbench multicore score of 10,049 for the purported Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 device. iPhone 16 is recorded a result of 8,033 in the multi-core test.

Later in September, test results were leaked showing the unannounced Galaxy S25 Ultra running on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset. The device scored 3,069 single-core and 9,080 multi-core. Again, the single-core result was lower than the iPhone 16 Pro with A18 Pro (3,386), but 9% higher than the multi-core score.

Benchmark scores are certainly sexy, despite the rumors, but that's not all that's needed to update the system-on-chip, the GPU, and the technology the GPU supports to deliver console-quality gaming on Snapdragon, image signal processor along with a neural processing unit, and we look forward to updates on how these two have changed in Qualcomm's latest mobile silicon.

If this year's Snapdragon Summit goes well, the official announcement of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will likely include a list of handset manufacturers that have committed to adopting this silicon in future devices. And given its history, it is unlikely that Samsung will be included on that list. That doesn't mean that Samsung doesn't plan to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in at least some of its next Galaxy S25 models.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of speculation about the chipset that might be included in various Galaxy S25 models. It is widely believed that Samsung will use the new Snapdragon chip only in the Ultra model, as it did in the Galaxy S24 release, and will limit its use to certain markets in the Plus and standard Galaxy S releases. (Only the North American versions of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.) In other regions, the Galaxy S25 will be available with Samsung's Exynos chip.

However, there are conflicting rumors out there, with some claiming that Samsung will skip the Exynos 2500 in all Galaxy S25 models and adopt the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Yet another report claims that Samsung is considering a MediaTek Dimensity system-on-chip for its flagship. Whatever the final outcome, don't expect much clarity at the Snapdragon Summit. Instead, questions about the chipset will be cleared up when the Galaxy S25 nears launch in early 2025.

The Galaxy S25 is not the only one in sight; the OnePlus 13 could also launch in China by the end of the year before a global release in early 2025. Since OnePlus typically uses Qualcomm's best silicon for its flagship releases, the OnePlus 13 will likely feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

Besides the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip for cell phones, Qualcomm has already revealed another announcement at this week's event: another teaser video on the Snapdragon Summit website shows a Snapdragon logo on a car parked on a beach, clearly indicating that the chipmaker plans to talk about its automotive business in Hawaii this week. Qualcomm makes chips for connected cars and smart vehicles.

Past Snapdragon Summits have also featured announcements about connected computing, with last year's Snapdragon X Elite announcement being a perfect example. In recent months, Intel has announced its Lunar Lake chip and continues to move toward the introduction of AI laptops. One would imagine that Qualcomm is working on a follow-up to the X Elite to stay at the forefront of that market.

Qualcomm is also supplying chips for another area that has been receiving a great deal of interest recently: mixed reality headsets. The Meta Quest 3S, which just began shipping this month, is powered by a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip. Qualcomm may provide an update on its AR and VR device efforts.