Samsung Galaxy S23 series rumored to have overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU and GPU cores

The Samsung Galaxy S23 series is expected to launch in February 2023 and will most likely be the first set of Galaxy smartphones to feature Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. The latest rumors suggest that the flagship Galaxy trio may just feature a special version of Qualcomm’s latest SoC with overclocked CPU and GPU cores. Earlier this year, Samsung and Qualcomm signed a multi-year agreement which suggested that Samsung will use most of the Snapdragon SoCs in its Galaxy S23 series, which means that the S23 handsets due to Exynos offers will be a lot less.

SAMSUNG has had a long relationship with Qualcomm and in the past we’ve seen Galaxy S series smartphones be the first to ship with a flagship Qualcomm SoC before anyone else, so it’s no surprise knowing that Samsung’s next big launch will feature a special edition SoC designed specifically for its flagships.

This new information arrives through the Twitter tip, Ice Universe (@UniverseIce), who tweeted that Samsung will have a special edition Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, where the main core of the CPU will have a frequency of 3.36GHz (vs 3.2GHz) and Adreno GPU will have a frequency of 719MHz (compared to 680MHz). These are both maximum frequencies the SoC can ramp up to when the need arises. Ice Universe doesn’t explicitly mention that this special edition SoC will be in the Galaxy S23 series, but considering the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is Qualcomm’s flagship SoC, it’s clear that the S23 series will be among the first to get it.

Samsung Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Special Edition (we don’t know its official name yet) 3.2GHz→3.36GHz CPU. Surprisingly, the GPU has also been increased from 680MHz to 719MHz

– Ice Universe (@UniverseIce) November 18, 2022

The ability to run at a higher-than-standard frequency also results in more heat build-up, so it will be interesting to see how Samsung handles this with its cooling system. I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung decided to just use this overclocked SoC in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, as that phone is expected to be heavier and larger than the other two, which means it could have more efficient cooling solution. This will also allow Samsung to have one more difference between the Ultra model and the other two.

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series has been rumored for several weeks now. The lineup is expected to include three models – Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+ and Galaxy S23 Ultra. The rumored Ultra model is said to have a quad rear camera cluster led by a 200-megapixel Samsung ISOCELL sensor. The primary rear camera sensor may have a pixel size of 0.6 micron pixels and an aperture of f/1.7.