Leaked benchmarks for Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 should have Windows fans excited

Windows 10 on ARM devices could see a big boost in performance if these leaked benchmarks are accurate.

What you need to know

• Leaked benchmarks for the next generation Snapdragon 8cx processor recently appeared on Geekbench.
• The benchmarks show that the next 8cx might compete with Intel's 11th Gen Core i7 chips.
• As with all leaked benchmark figures, these should be taken with a grain of salt.

Geekbench 5 benchmarks for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 processor have appeared online. If the scores are accurate and genuine, people should be hopeful for the next generation of 8cx chips. Windows 10 on ARM devices like the Surface Pro X could see a big boost in performance if these scores turn out to be accurate.

As is the case with all leaked and unconfirmed benchmarks, these should be taken with a grain of salt. Scores can be from preproduction units or fabricated entirely.

Rumors about the 8cx Gen 3 state that it will feature eight high-performance cores working at different clock speeds. This is in contrast to using four high-performance cores and four low-power cores.

That rumored architecture shift could pay off, as the recently leaked benchmark scores show the 8cx Gen 3 competing with Intel's 11th Gen Core i7 processors. The benchmarks state that the 8cx Gen 3 gets a single-core score of 982 and a multi-core score of 4,918. That would be a marked improvement over the 8cx Gen 2 that gets a single-core score of 795 and a multi-core score of 3,050.

Perhaps more importantly than the jump compared to its predecessor, the 8cx Gen 3 looks respectable when compared to Intel's Core i7 chips. The Intel Core i7-1160G7 (15W TDP) gets a single-core score of 1,400 and a multi-core score of 5,000. Even the Core i7-1185G7 with a higher 28W TDP gets a single-core score of 1,550 and a multi-core score of 5,600.

While Intel's Core i7 chips beat out the leaked benchmarks of the 8cx Gen 3, the gap is smaller than previous generations of competing chips from Intel and Qualcomm. Below is a chart of relevant benchmarks from Tom's Hardware.

CPU	Single-core	Multi-core	TDP
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 (unconfirmed)	982	4,918	Unknown
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2	795	3,050	7W
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 1	725	2,884	7W
Intel Core i7-1160G7	1,400	5,000	15W
Intel Core i7-1185G7	1,550	5,600	28W
Apple M1	1,710	7,660	20-24W

Notably, if the benchmarks are accurate, Qualcomm's new chip will still lag far behind Apple's M1 chip. Those chips from Apple are in a class of their own right now in the CPU space. They do, however, run at a higher TDP than any of Qualcomm's offerings to date.