Galaxy S25 Ultra price hike, Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 to blame

Industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims a sharp price bump in the next Qualcomm chip. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra may also go pricier given Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 price hike. It is expected that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be 25 to 30% more expensive than its predecessor.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra may exclusively use Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset. In the US and China, the other two variants will also use the same chipset as the Ultra. However, the company may distribute chip utilization in other regions such as Europe and Asia.

Kuo reports that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 costs $190 to $200. As a result, the expensive Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 would increase the price of the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Samsung managed to freeze the pricing of this year’s flagships, but chances are least for the next generation.

It has been noted that the adoption of a 3nm process node is the primary reason behind the price increase. Qualcomm’s next Snapdragon mobile platform would be built on TSMC’s latest N3E node. Besides, AI would become another reason behind the price hike.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC

Based on previous leaks, Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 may be fabricated on TSMC’s 3nm process node. It will debut Qualcomm’s own developed Oryon CPU with custom architecture, with 8 cores expected in a 2 + 6 design, ditching efficiency cores entirely.

In particular, the high-performance cores are rumored to be clocked at up to 4.26 GHz. The SoC may also be equipped with an Adreno 830 GPU and Snapdragon X80 modem for fast 5G speeds, as well as support for latest LPDDR6 RAM.