A few months ago, without an announcement, Meta increased the maximum GPU clock frequency of Quest 3 with a firmware update, and this carried over to Quest 3S.
Quest's Horizon OS dynamically adjusts the headset's GPU speed to give apps the performance they need without wasting battery when they don’t need it. The highest frequency is, however, reserved for apps that enable Meta's dynamic resolution feature, which automatically adjusts the resolution within a range the developer specifies to maximize quality while maintaining frame rate.
Before the change, the maximum possible GPU frequency was 545MHz by default or 599MHz in Favor GPU mode, which lets developers trade off 16% of the maximum CPU clock speed for extra GPU power.
Now, after the change, the maximum GPU frequency is 599MHz by default, or 640MHz in Favor GPU mode.
| Maximum Before | Maximum Now (when thermals allow) |
|
| Default Mode | 545MHz | 599MHz |
| Favor GPU Mode | 599MHz | 640MHz |
The reason that getting the highest maximum clock speed requires using dynamic resolution is that it's not always thermally possible, and this applies to the boost too. If the headset gets too hot, the OS will bring down the frequency to the previous maximum, and reduce the rendering resolution too, whereas with a fixed resolution the frequency reduction would result in frame drops.
The change means that Quest 3 apps can run at higher maximum resolution than before, when thermally possible, if developers increase the upper limit of dynamic resolution. And since Quest 3S uses the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset with the same GPU, it gets the same frequencies.
Henry Stockdale
Meta says that Red Matter 2, arguably the highest fidelity title on Quest, was able to sustain the higher GPU frequency for 85% of playtime in testing, with no developer integration needed since it already used dynamic resolution with a high upper maximum.
Meta increased the maximum frequencies of Quest 2 and Quest Pro twice each throughout their lifetime, so the new boost continues a trend of the company making its headsets more powerful with post-launch firmware updates.
