The next flagship chip from Qualcomm will be the Snapdragon 8 Elite and not the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 as predicted. This is another name scheme change after Qualcomm stopped using three-digit names three years ago. The Snapdragon 8 Elite has the same name as the Snapdragon X Elite PC chip as the two have some similarities.
First of all, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is equipped with a 2+6 CPU core configuration, which is 2X the Prime Oryon CPU core at 4.32GHz and 6X the Performance Oryon CPU core at 3.53GHz. This is paired with the latest Adreno GPU.
According to Qualcomm, due to the power savings that Oryon CPUs can achieve, they no longer use the tri-cluster configuration that has been used so far and no longer need to include power-saving CPUs like last year's Cortax-A520.
With the Prime core operating at a speed of 4.32GHz, it makes the 8 Elite the mobile device chip with the highest CPU speed to date. It is also Qualcomm's first chip manufactured using 3nm technology instead of 4nm in 8 Gen 3 last year.
According to Qualcomm through the use of the second generation Oryon CPU, it puts the performance of the 8 Elite in the same line as the X Elite which uses the first generation Oryon CPU. The increase in CPU performance is up to 45% but still reduces power consumption by up to 44%. In the benchmark tests that have been done, Qualcomm said the score recorded by the Snapdragon 8 Elite is higher than the Apple A18 Pro in the Antutu, Geekbench 6 and Speedometer 3.0 tests.
The GPU recorded a 40% increase in performance and ray tracing up to 35% but reduced power consumption by up to 40%. Finally, the NPU recorded a 45% increase in running various AI models directly from the device.
The latest Adreno GPU on the 8 Elite is also the first to fully support the Nanite feature used in Unreal Engine 5.3. No chip for Android devices supported it before. Simultaneously with the announcement of the chip, Qualcomm said that some games with class AAA graphics will begin to be offered on mobile devices.
Other specifications are the use of the Snapdragon X80 5G model, QHD+ 240Hz screen support, LPDDR5X memory, UFS 4.0 storage, up to 320MP camera and up to 8K 60p video recording.
The first manufacturers that will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite are ASUS, Honor, iQOO, OnePlus, OPPO, RealMe, Samsung, Vivo, and Xiaomi. The first devices with this chip will be launched in just a few weeks.