Qualcomm Introduces the Snapdragon 8 Elite
Qualcomm finally reveals their next mobile chipset and no, it’s not the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. It’s now the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and it’s now making big promises in performance for the next generation of Android smartphones!
We’re definitely interested in seeing what kind of changes were made under the hood that warrants this name change. Fortunately, Qualcomm has released some additional details that we’ve listed down below:
Breaking Conventions
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is the official successor to the very capable Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 found in this year’s Android flagships like the Xiaomi 14. As you can see, Qualcomm is now opting for a more unified naming scheme that’s much more similar to the X Elite chips it uses in its ARM-based laptops.
Qualcomm has also decided to change the composition of this new chipset, ditching its efficiency cores and using a mix of both prime and performance cores only. The Snapdragon 8 Elite comes with 2 prime cores clocked at 4.32 GHz and 6 performance cores at 3.53 GHz. It’s also got 24MB L2 cache as well as support for up to 5,300MHz LPDDR5X RAM.
This isn’t the first time a mobile chipset has done this of course. MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 and later Dimensity 9400 also released with no efficiency cores in its design. And like their competitor then, Qualcomm’s promising some big performance gains with the new generation but we’ll definitely have to see how it handles thermals and battery efficiency.
Better Gaming Performance
For the GPU, Qualcomm’s going with an upgraded Adreno model. It’s now going with a slice GPU architecture which should give better multitasking performance. Qualcomm’s promising up to 40% faster performance and efficiency when it comes to graphically-intensive tasks.
Gaming performance has received some attention as well, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite now offering support for Unreal Engine 5.3 as well as the Nanite virtualized geometry system. Basically, it’s better details and textures on your games without losing too much performance.
Ray-tracing is still on the table of course, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite promising up to 35% improved performance in that aspect. It depends on the game of course as not all devs implement their ray-traced lighting the same way.
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A Dash of AI
With everybody seemingly getting on the AI game now, it’s no surprise Qualcomm’s also looking to deliver on this front. Given that this is an Oryon CPU, this new chip should be much more capable of completing more AI tasks on-device rather than the cloud.
There’s a new ‘image signal processor’ (ISP) which should result in improvements to your phone’s autofocus, white balance, and exposure when taking photos. Qualcomm’s also demonstrated an AI assistant that’s now able to handle your inputs entirely on-device.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Coming to Realme!
We’ve even got a sneak peek of the first Android phones to use this new chip during the presentation. The first to announce was Realme, with their upcoming Realme GT 7 Pro which is set to launch sometime this coming November. There was also the OnePlus 13, visible in the official trailers and images.
The Xiaomi 15 was the next one to jump on the new chip but it may release earlier than either the Realme or OnePlus units, given that they’ve already set an October launch for their devices. Meanwhile, we might see the Galaxy S25 Ultra early next year though we’ll also have to see how Samsung handles their Exynos-Snapdragon split for their flagships.
As for us, we’re definitely keeping a close eye on all four of these devices. Let us know if you’re interested in any of these three phones for an upgrade!
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