Qualcomm has introduced the chip that may energy most flagship telephones in 2025, and it guarantees to ship spectacular pace. The truth is, it is so quick that Qualcomm determined it was time to revamp the naming scheme for its flagship SoCs (sure, once more). The Snapdragon 8 Elite not solely will get a brand new title but additionally introduces a robust new CPU core clocked at a blazing 4.3 GHz—and that is only the start.
Because of TSMC’s cutting-edge N3E course of node—the identical know-how behind the high-performance Apple A18 Professional and MediaTek Dimensity 9400—Qualcomm has additionally made a big design change. It has executed away with the smaller effectivity cores, following a technique MediaTek first adopted final 12 months with its extremely environment friendly Dimensity 9300, which is featured in units like the just lately reviewed Xiaomi 14T Professional and Galaxy Tab S10 tablets.
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite | MediaTek Dimensity 9400 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 | Samsung Exynos 2400 | Google Tensor G4 | Apple A18 Professional | MediaTek Dimensity 9300 | Apple A17 Professional | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime core | 2x Oryon @ 4.32 GHz | 1x Cortex-X925 @ 3.62 GHz | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.2 GHz | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.1 GHz | 2x Apple Everest @ 4.05 GHz | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.25 GHz | 2x Apple Everest @ 3.78 GHz |
| Efficiency core | 4x Oryon @ 3.53 GHz | 3x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz | 3x Cortex A720 @ 3.15 GHz 2x Cortex A720 @ 2.96 GHz |
2x Cortex A720 @ 2.9 GHz 3x Cortex A720 @ 2.6 GHz |
3x Cortex-A720 @ 2.6 GHz | 3x Cortex-X4 @ 2.85 GHz | ||
| Effectivity core | 4x Cortex-A720 | 2x Cortex-A520 @ 2.3 GHz | 4x Cortex-A520 @ 1.95 GHz | 4x Cortex-A520 @ 1.92 GHz | 4x Apple Sawtooth @ 2.42 GHz | 4x Cortex-A720 @ 2.0 GHz | 4x Apple Sawtooth @ 2.11 GHz | |
| RAM | LPDDR5x-10667 5333 MHz (85.4 GB/s) |
LPDDR5x-10667 4x 16-bit @ 5333 MHz (85.4 GB/s) |
LPDDR5x-9600 4x 16-bit @ 4800 MHz (76.8 GB/s) |
LPDDR5x-8533 4x 16-bit @ 4266 MHz (68.2 GB/s) |
LPDDR5x 4x 16-bit |
LPDDR5x-7500 4x 16-bit @ 3750 MHz (60 GB/s) |
LPDDR5T-9600 4x 16-bit @ 4800 MHz (76.8 GB/s) |
LPDDR5x-6400 4x 16-bit @ 3200 MHz (51.2 GB/s) |
| GPU | Adreno | 12x ARM Immortalis-G925 | Adreno 750 (2774 GFLOPS) |
AMD RDNA3 (3406 GFLOPS) |
7x ARM Mali-G715 | 6x Apple GPU (2227 GFLOPS) |
12x ARM Immortalis-G720 (3993.6 GFLOPS) |
6x Apple GPU (2147 GFLOPS) |
| 5G modem | Snapdragon X80 (10/3.5 Gbps) |
MediaTek (7/3.5 Gbps) |
Snapdragon X75 (10/3.5 Gbps) |
Exterior Exynos 5153 (12/3.67 Gbps) |
Exterior Exynos 5400c | Exterior Snapdragon X71 (10/3.5 Gbps) |
MediaTek (7/3.5 Gbps) |
Exterior Snapdragon X71 (10/3.5 Gbps) |
| Connectivity | FastConnect 7900 Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 6.0 UWB |
Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 |
Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 |
Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3 |
Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.3 |
Exterior Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.3 |
Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 |
Exterior Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3 |
| Course of node | TSMC N3E | TSMC N3E | TSMC N4P | Samsung 4LPP+ | Samsung 4LPP+ | TSMC N3E | TSMC N4P | TSMC N3B |
In line with Qualcomm, the eight CPU cores within the Snapdragon 8 Elite are based mostly on its second-generation customized Oryon cores, transferring away from the usual ARM Cortex structure.
This new cell CPU core shares a server-based lineage with the Nuvia design, which Qualcomm acquired for its Snapdragon X Elite PC chips. It additionally marks Qualcomm’s return to customized ARM cores in cell, an area it helped pioneer with the Scorpion core discovered within the unique Snapdragon S1 chips a few years in the past.
Qualcomm claims a forty five% enhance in efficiency and a forty five% enchancment in energy effectivity. Whereas these numbers may appear inflated at first look, they’re much like MediaTek’s figures. It’s essential to notice that each corporations are bypassing the primary technology of the “3nm” course of, which debuted final 12 months in Apple’s A17 Professional.
The engineers from each corporations apparently loved having the brand new course of at their disposal, with the efficiency cores in each chips clocked greater than the prime core of their predecessors. And for these frightened about these high-frequency numbers, Qualcomm’s engineers confirmed to nextpit that the CPU cores might be clocked “all the way in which down”, which means that they’ll attain an influence state with minimal consumption.
Not solely that, Qualcomm introduced a sequence of optimizations to the processing pipeline, and elevated cache capacities to the CPU, with 12 MB of L2 cache for every of the CPU clusters. To feed the CPU, the Snapdragon 8 Elite helps quick LPDDR5x-10533 RAM at as much as 24 GB capability for all of the Chrome tabs you may throw at your cellphone.
Digital camera and gaming enhancements
On the GPU aspect, the brand new core is as soon as once more solely named “Adreno” formally, nevertheless it advantages from the identical course of node improve with 40% higher efficiency in rasterization and 35% in ray tracing.
To bridge the hole with the present console technology, the Snapdragon 8 Elite now helps Unreal Engine’s Nanite system to generate extra sensible environments and the Chaos Physics engine for extra sensible collisions and physics simulation. It stays to be seen if studios will use the options although.
Within the digicam division, there’s a new picture sign processing (ISP) core, generally referred to as merely “Spectra” like in earlier chips, different occasions as “AI ISP”. The ISP options triple 18-bit processing, for as much as a 320-megapixel single-camera seize, or (extra realistically), a 108 MP seize for the zero-shutter lag method utilized in computational pictures.
The picture processor is now higher built-in with the Hexagon NPU to detect the scene and its components, together with face detection, background blur, and low-light photographs. It helps Google’s Extremely HDR format, and for video, can report as much as 4K decision at 120 FPS in HEVC format. One factor that codec geeks will not get this time is AV1 encoding. The open-source format is supported just for playback.
#AI #AI #AI
The Hexagon NPU as soon as once more is answerable for AI/neural/machine studying duties, together with generative AI acceleration. Qualcomm guarantees compatibility with the largest variety of LLM/LVM/LMM fashions for extra on-device processing, together with multi-modal Gemini Nano.
The corporate additionally demonstrated a robust function that’s basically Magic Eraser for movies. Developed in partnership with Arcsoft, Video Object Eraser was already talked about throughout final 12 months’s Snapdragon Summit. Just like superior GPU results, we’re ready to see app builders undertake the method to take away these pesky video bombers…
On the connectivity entrance, we discover the one cores that also use generational names to tell apart them from earlier cores. The all-important 5G modem bought upgraded to the Snapdragon X80 core. Earlier generations already employed AI algorithms to higher use the antenna, however the Snapdragon 8 Elite can now do this with a number of antennae.
And with elevated satellite tv for pc connectivity discuss throughout emergency eventualities and off-the-grid use, the Snapdragon 8 Elite now integrates non-terrestrial community (NTN) help natively. When requested by nextpit, Qualcomm engineers confirmed that the function is suitable with the new NTN help added to Android 15 for emergency satellite tv for pc messages, for instance.
For extra native space community connections, the FastConnect 7900 core now has help for UWB (ultra-wide band), along with Wi-Fi 7 and the just lately introduced Bluetooth 6.0.
Snapdragon 8 Elite availability
Qualcomm introduced that product launches powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite ought to occur “within the coming weeks”, and listed the standard listing of companions: Asus Honor, Oppo/OnePlus, Realme, Vivo/iQoo, Xiaomi, and, for the primary time shortly, Samsung.
Ensure that to bookmark our web site and observe our social media channels to know all about future units powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip (and its rivals), plus our assessments with these telephones and tablets. We won’t wait to see the subsequent batch of flagship units.
