Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite is here, and it's a big deal for phones
Qualcomm is currently hosting its annual Summit in Hawaii, and as expected, it announced the next-generation chipset that will power most upcoming Android smartphones.
What isn't expected is the new name, new internals built on its Oryon CPU, and major improvements across the board. It's a big deal: the Snapdragon 8 Elite will power most Android flagship phones over the next year and these improvements mean big gains for many phone makers.
Let's dive into the five key things.
1. A unified naming scheme
I love the Snapdragon X Elite chipset inside my favorite PC of the moment: the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14. Qualcomm's long-awaited Oryon CPU brought the benefits of ARM computing to the PC space and kickstarted an AI-focused revolution.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite brings Qualcomm's mobile business in line with its computing business. Elite is Qualcomm's new flagship naming scheme, further evidenced by the new announcements in Auto: Snapdragon Ride Elite and Snapdragon Cockpit Elite.
Presumably, the successor to the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 — the lesser-capable and more affordable sibling to last generation's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – will use the Plus moniker, as evidenced by the Snapdragon X Plus in computing.
2. The debut of Oryon for mobile
A new name also brings a change in architecture; the Snapdragon 8 Elite sees Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU come to mobile. Like the Snapdragon laptops, there’s a custom eight-core processor with two prime cores clocked at 4.32 GHz, and six performance cores clocked at 3.53 GHz.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite also sees Qualcomm switch to TSMC’s second-generation 3 nanometer fabrication process, whereas last year’s 8 Gen 3 was based on the 4nm process. This should help deliver some improvements in performance and energy efficiency.
The two Oryon prime cores deliver performance gains of up to 45%, but crucially, also deliver similar gains in efficiency. The net effect is better performance and better battery life, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite expected to deliver 2.5 hours extra of gaming time compared to the previous generation.
3. A big push in gaming and graphics
Many of Qualcomm’s claims around the Snapdragon 8 Elite promise vast improvements in CPU and battery, but there’s also a big push into gaming and graphics. The Snapdragon 8 Elite features an Andreno GPU with a sliced architecture, a first for Qualcomm’s GPU lineup.
The graphics engine is expected to deliver graphics improvements of up to 40%, which should help deliver a next-generation gaming experience. Apple made a big deal of the gaming performance of its new A18 and A18 Pro chipsets inside the iPhone 16 lineup, and we can expect many Android companies to do the same.
To that effect, Qualcomm kicked off the hype with a few key gaming announcements. This is the first time that Unreal’s Nanite graphics system is coming to mobile devices, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite also supports the Unreal Chaos Physics Engine. These two announcements coupled with the performance of the GPU should lead to vastly improved gaming for the next generation of Android phones.
4. Everything AI and beyond
Naturally, a next-generation chipset needs next-generation capabilities, especially related to AI. The Snapdragon 8 Elite features a new Hexagon neural processing unit (NPU) up to 45% faster than the last generation. The chipset also comes with a new AI Engine with multimodal Gen AI support and the ability to run up to 70 tokens on SLMs.
On the camera front, the next generation of Android phones will get improved HDR, improved autofocus performance, and more natural-looking skies and skin tones. There are also new features related to erasing objects in video, which could mean that the next generation of generative AI features could focus on altering and editing existing videos.
As you might expect from a flagship mobile processor, there’s premium connectivity thanks to the FastConnect 7900 Mobile Connectivity System. This is the first chip to combine Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and UltraWideband connectivity, and it should mean excellent connectivity on the first phones to run the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
5. Several Next-Generation partnerships
A year from now, I would expect that many people will have heard of the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. The Qualcomm and Snapdragon brands are being promoted by all partners, with Qualcomm standing front of center at the launch of the AI era for PCs. Then there are the partnerships outside of technology, some of which are yielding outstanding results in just months.
The partnership with Manchester United is having a major impact
As evidenced by Qualcomm’s partnership with Manchester United, the Snapdragon brand is becoming far more recognizable. Kicking off the Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon unveiled just how recognizable: the front-of-shirt sponsorship with Manchester United is just a few months old, but has already been extended given its success.
As far as launches go, Qualcomm hit a slam-dunk with its Manchester United front-of-shirt sponsorship.
In just a few months, it has achieved over 2.4 billion impressions and generated more than 400,000 new Snapdragon Insiders and the value derived has been equivalent to the effect of 29 Superbowl Halftime adverts. As far as launches are concerned, Qualcomm hit a slamdunk.
The Snapdragon 8 Eltie will power the next generation of Android phones
The Snapdragon 8 Elite matters as it will be the brains behind many of the flagship Android phones launched over the next year. The very best flagships from Samsung. OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, and others will all be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite. We already know that the upcoming Xiaomi 15 series and the Asus ROG Phone 9 will both be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite achieves the 3 million score on the AnTuTu benchmark for the first time for Qualcomm and matches the score set by the Dimensity 9400 a few weeks ago. Both chips offer the very best in power, performance, and efficiency, and the next generation of Android phones is set to be extremely special.