The rumored Meta Quest 3 is said to be twice as powerful as the current Quest 2, according to collective reporting from UploadVR. Qualcomm and Meta have not confirmed these reports, but there are some interesting clues that indicate the rumors may be true.
The rumors first began when schematics for the Quest 3 were leaked to SadlyItsBradley (a popular VR-focused YouTuber). In a follow-up video, he claimed an unidentified source told him the Quest 3 would be powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, a chip that has not been announced yet.
The XR2 Gen 1, the chip that currently powers the Quest 2, is an offshoot of the Snapdragon 865, which powered the most powerful Android flagships when it was released in 2020. That chip uses the Adreno 650 on the graphics front in the Snapdragon 865 and XR2 Gen 1 delivered 1.2 teraflops performance, which was double the 0.6 teraflop performance of the Adreno 540 on the Snapdragon 835. That chipset powered the original Oculus Quest and Vive Focus.
Skip ahead to 2022, and most flagship Android devices are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, plus the Adreno 730 delivers a whopping 2.2 teraflops of performance. If the Snapdragon XR Gen 2 is a tweaked version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (which is the most likely scenario), that means the Quest 3 could easily be twice as powerful as the Quest 2. If Qualcomm’s year-to-year performance improvements are any indicator, that will almost certainly be the case.
The Quest 2 is currently one of the best VR headsets you can get right now, and it’s one of the big reasons VR gaming is becoming more popular. If the Quest 3 expands what virtual reality headsets are capable of, that popularity — for the medium and the headset itself — will continue to grow.
It should be noted that the Quest 3 is different from the upcoming Quest Pro (Project Cambria), which is rumored to launch on October 11. The Quest 3 will be more like a direct follow-up to the Quest 2, whereas the Quest Pro is aimed at a different demographic.
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