As a perennial manufacturer of the global market share of smartphones, it is customary for Samsung to bring a new generation of flagship models at the beginning of each year, and this year is no exception. Previously, Samsung officially released the new Galaxy S24 series models in January, and in addition to the regular upgrades, the improvement of AI has become a highlight of the phone. What capabilities does the Samsung Galaxy AI have, and how does it interact with Snapdragon? Let's find out with the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Reasons to choose the 3rd Gen Snapdragon 8.
Samsung flagships usually come in two different versions, and their differences are mainly reflected in the platform on which they are carried. According to Samsung's arrangement this year, the Galaxy S24 series is equipped with a customized third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for galaxy) platform, what is the magic of Snapdragon 8 (for galaxy) that makes Samsung in recent years cooperate with Qualcomm to launch an "exclusive version"? And what magic does the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for galaxy) bring to the Samsung Galaxy S24 series?
Let's start with the platform itself. The third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for galaxy) is essentially "fine-tuned" on the basis of the third-generation Snapdragon 8 platform, and the Cortex-X4 super-core is clocked at a whopping 34GHz, considering that the current stage of smartphones in daily use rarely run the main frequency to the full, Samsung's tuning of the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for Galaxy) is more inclined to the device's temperature control, power consumption and battery life.
In addition, official data shows that the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for Galaxy) CPU performance is increased by 20% and the GPU is increased by 30%, compared with the standard third-generation Snapdragon 8, the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for Galaxy) emphasizes more graphics performance, which means that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra equipped with the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for Galaxy) will have better graphics performance. Combined with CPU adjustments, Samsung Galaxy S24 wants to bring users better power consumption and battery life in low-to-medium frequency scenarios, while allowing users to get a better gaming experience.
The third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for Galaxy) brings excellent performance support to the Samsung S24 Ultra and is specifically tuned for user needs, laying a solid performance foundation for the device, and then it will be the turn of AI to come into play.
The third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for galaxy) lays the AI foundation for the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Compared with the previous generation platform, the third-generation Snapdragon 8 has undergone drastic improvements in terms of AI. The new platform uses the new Qualcomm AI engine, and the heterogeneous architecture greatly strengthens the AI computing power. Among them, the Hexagon NPU has been upgraded with a new microarchitecture, which almost doubles the performance and improves the energy efficiency by 41% compared to the previous generation. The Hexagon NPU integrates a hardware acceleration unit, a miniature block inference unit, and a performance-enhancing tensor scalar vector unit. At the same time, because the vector unit of the Hexagon NPU has a direct connection to the memory, with the help of 4800MHz LPDDR5X memory, it is more efficient to perform tasks such as quantization, compression, and compilation, and the latency will be lower.
It is worth mentioning that Qualcomm AI processing does not only run on the NPU, but the Qualcomm AI engine can call processing units such as CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs for heterogeneous computing. The more powerful Qualcomm Sensor Hub adds a second always-aware ISP and next-generation micro NPUs with 30% more memory and INT4 support, enabling AI performance improvements of up to 35 times.
With this integrated AI processing system, the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (for Galaxy) platform enables AI applications that were previously difficult to run on mobile phones. It already supports running models with 10 billion parameters on the terminal side, and can generate up to 20 tokens per second for 7 billion parameter large oracle models. It takes less than 1 second to run the stable diffusion**ai generation task on the device side.
The AI upgrade on the hardware provides computing power support for the Samsung Galaxy S24 to achieve more intelligent AI effects, and at the same time, whether it is connected to the network or running AI locally, the third-generation Snapdragon 8 also brings lower power consumption in addition to computing power, which is of great significance to users in daily use.
Landing life scene Galaxy AI makes AI grounded.
AI is not a new concept for users, but in previous application scenarios, AI does not seem to bring a real sense to the actual experience of users. As the focus of this upgrade of the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is equipped with One UI 6 from the factory1 system, the built-in Galaxy AI has made the creativity and intelligence level of the mobile phone have been qualitatively improved. Many of the functions are specially tuned for the user's actual scenarios, and strive to solve the user's pain points in daily applications.
For example, if you are a Samsung Galaxy S24 user, you may have a call with a foreign friend, and the real-time translation feature during the call is invaluable when you can't communicate fluently in English or other languages. The Samsung Galaxy S24 series' native calling app has a built-in "real-time translation" function for calls, which can provide real-time two-way voice and text translation without calling third-party apps, and breaking the language wall is no longer a problem. In the context of increasing globalization, not only studying abroad, working, but also walking on the road, it is possible to communicate with foreign friends, and the real-time translation function can be well applied to these scenarios to solve problems. It is worth mentioning that in the process of translation, the content of the communication between the two parties will not be uploaded to the cloud, but will be implemented based on device-side AI, which will also effectively protect the privacy of users' conversations.
Transcription assistants can greatly improve our work efficiency. AI can transcribe a paragraph into text and refine the main idea, and can support one-click addition to notes, so workers no longer have to worry about too many meeting items to remember.
The Galaxy AI is equally exciting to use during shooting. In the process of daily shooting, we often encounter a situation - although we capture the wonderful moment, there are some passers-by or cluttered things in the picture, which greatly affects the final effect of the film. AI is the perfect solution to this problem.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra has the Galaxy AI editing tool, which allows for more possibilities for this kind of editing in addition to editing ** in the traditional sense. Generally speaking, if we want to correct a sample, we can only rotate and crop it within the image, which will inevitably cause the loss of some pixels. With the help of generative AI, we can expand outwards and supplement the AI to fill in the edge gaps caused by rotation according to the picture.
In addition, AI gives users the ability to edit elements freely. When an object is selected, the user can move it to a more desirable position, and Galaxy AI can also make adjustments to fill in the gaps created in place, resulting in a natural and harmonious background. When extended with generative AI technology, the Galaxy AI editing tool adds a watermark on the app and in the metadata to inform the user that it was generated by AI.
And the "circle and search" function is a "big killer" of Galaxy AI. Users only need to circle, smear, or tap any ** or text on the Samsung Galaxy S24 screen, and the device will get accurate and high-quality search results instantly. As long as you see it, you can find it. Galaxy AI can also help you integrate and sort out relevant information based on the user's location, so that users can experience an immersive on-the-go AI experience.
The third-generation Snapdragon 8 has become the platform of choice for flagship models in 2024, and its excellent device-side AI performance has been experienced by users and applied to their daily learning, work, and life.
Accumulate advantages AI literacy to undertake Snapdragon's flagship platform.
In fact, many of the AI features mentioned earlier didn't come overnight. The accumulation of technology requires accumulation, and the development of AI is inseparable from Qualcomm's iterative upgrades from generation to generation. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra's support for real-time call translation isn't new this year. Qualcomm has implemented support for real-time voice translation on the second-generation Snapdragon 8, and the wonderful feature of this feature is that it breaks down the barriers between languages, so that users of different languages can feel convenient in the common scenario of "** call". Many partners are already following this cutting-edge experience, and we will see more models support this feature in the future.
Another example is AI intelligent retouching, many models support the use of AI and clear the reflection that makes the exception in the identification, so that the effect is clearer and more usable. This feature needs to be applied to real-time semantic analysis technology, through the recognition of many elements in the picture, accurately distinguish and remove the reflective effect that interferes with the quality of the glasses, and even the reflection in the glasses can be removed - this is the role of the first cognitive ISP brought by the second-generation Snapdragon 8.
Powered by the AI features of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, users can soften**, sharpen grass, or achieve "magic change" effects – all of which are already running in real time or even before shooting. We used to say at the time that the cognitive ISP and AI engine of real-time layered pixel processing and real-time semantic segmentation filters would open up the next generation of professional-quality image experiences and redefine user shooting, and the third-generation Snapdragon 8 has already done that.
At this stage, production AI can still provide users with services such as Wensheng Diagram and Wensheng Wen, but after cooperating with partners such as Meitu Large Model, users can implement AI-based processing on the device side, and realize functions that previously required software such as Photoshop to adjust image elements and transpose and supplement. Qualcomm has been promoting the acceleration of the implementation of AI on the device side, which can achieve fast and good AI computing on the device side while avoiding the risk of information leakage that may be caused by the upload of user privacy data to the cloud for processing. For users, the operation of device-side AI has no obvious impact on device power consumption, and at the same time, it has many advantages such as network-free operation and cost savings. Previously, AI features such as AI expansion had been announced to be supported when the third-generation Snapdragon 8 was released, and many partners, including Samsung and Xiaomi, have also popularized this feature to benefit the majority of users.
Write at the end. The third-generation Snapdragon 8 inherits and carries forward the performance and energy efficiency advantages of the second-generation Snapdragon 8, and at the same time, technologies such as cognitive ISP and real-time semantic segmentation have been applied in the previous generation. It is undeniable that there are two trends in the industry's view of AI, one is to vigorously support and promote the development, and the other is to follow the trend, but with a conservative attitude, because so far we have not seen a killer application based on AI, and the improvement of AI to users seems to only exist in small functions and convenience, and has not made great changes in users' lives.
I am still optimistic about this, and all great changes are inseparable from the full accumulation of technology and foreshadowing in the early stage. Just as Qualcomm has been in the field of AI for more than ten years, it was not until the release of "Hybrid AI is the Future of AI" last year that we saw Qualcomm's technical theoretical achievements for such a long time. But in fact, many AI functions have been installed on devices in the past few years, and AI has long been integrated into users' habits. Just like the Samsung Galaxy S24 series and the new products of many Qualcomm partners who have launched AI functions, the AI functions brought by manufacturers may only be optimized for a certain pain point and application scenario now, but when we look back in the future, we will find that these are just the epitome of changing people's lifestyles.
At the same time, the reason why the third-generation Snapdragon 8 launched the Galaxy version for Samsung and was chosen by the majority of partners is already obvious. In the AI era, Qualcomm's strong technology accumulation, more comprehensive interconnection ecosystem, and in-depth and long-term cooperation with partners are the reasons for everyone's recognition. It is believed that not only the Galaxy S24 series, but also the flagship models based on the third-generation Snapdragon 8 will be able to bring consumers excellent performance in the AI era.