Qualcomm has announced its latest and most powerful mobile processor ever. The Snapdragon 8 Elite succeeds the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and is so powerful that it deserves a new name. Expect to see the chip in most Android flagships soon.
Like its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Elite features in-house developed Oryon CPU cores. This time, the two prime cores are clocked at up to 4.32 GHz, while the other six performance cores run at 3.53 GHz. This makes them 45% faster and 44% more energy efficient at the same time, according to Qualcomm.
The GPU should perform 40% better and has 35% better ray tracing. That should make gaming even more realistic. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is the first mobile processor with support for Unreal Engine 5 with Nanite. In terms of AI, Qualcomm offers up to 45% better performance due to the improved Hexagon NPU.
First benchmark results
All these improvements do not go unnoticed. In single-core benchmarks, the Snapdragon 8 Elite rivals the Apple A18 Pro seen in the Apple iPhone 16 Pro. In multi-core, the 8 Elite leaves the competition far behind. Although benchmarks only tell one side of the story.
Surely we'll want to see the chip in action for ourselves before jumping to conclusions. Fortunately, we won't have to wait long. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Elite will ship within weeks to customers such as Asus, Honor, OnePlus, Oppo, Samsung and Xiaomi.