Among the interesting midrange chips for 2025 is the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, which is the much-awaited successor to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2. Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is 20% better than the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 in CPU performance and 40% better in GPU performance–all while being 12% more power efficient. On paper, this means that the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is more suitable for gaming than its predecessor.
Are Qualcomm’s claims true? We got our hands on the Redmi Note 14 Pro+, which is one of the first phones in the Philippines to use the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, and we ran synthetic and gaming benchmarks to see how it holds up against the competition.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Looking at numbers from Geekbench and 3DMark, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 does offer a boost in performance for both single-core and multi-core CPU tests when compared to its predecessor and the Dimensity 7300. The GPU performance is a different story, as the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 presented a sizeable lead over the two.
Compared to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 presented a GPU performance improvement of 47% in Geekbench Compute and around 25% with 3DMark Wild Life. This goes in line with Qualcomm’s claims especially if Geekbench is their main basis. For CPU performance, we’re looking at an average of 9% improvement on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 compared to its predecessor.
Gaming Performance
With the massive increase in GPU performance, this should translate to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 performing better with games on paper. To prove that, we ran Genshin Impact at high graphics with 60FPS enabled on phones running a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 and a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2.
Based on our tests, we got around a 10FPS increase with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 as we attained an average of 36.952–as compared to 27.135 on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2. The tradeoff we saw here is that the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 had higher peak temperatures at 44.9 degrees Celsius–as compared to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 that peaked at 39.4 degrees Celsius. There’s no cause for alarm here, as the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ has good thermal management––the phone did not feel alarmingly warm after playing Genshin Impact for 20 minutes, and was still comfortable to hold.
Another game that’s brutal is Wuthering Waves, and the same story holds: comparing it to a Dimensity 7300-powered phone, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 got an average FPS of 41.383, which is a little over 10FPS higher than the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 that only got 31.15FPS. The same trend applies for peak temperatures, as the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 hovered at around 47.7 degrees Celsius–which is 6 degrees Celsius higher than what we got on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2. Again, thermal management plays a big factor in scenarios like this, and the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ managed to sustain its performance and keep the phone itself not too hot to touch.
Final Thoughts
From our tests, Qualcomm has addressed the complaints consumers had with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 especially when it comes with GPU performance with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. Both our benchmarks and gaming tests prove Qualcomm’s claims of a significant performance boost for the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3–and we look forward to more phones using this midrange chip and maximize its full potential.