Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite is “Gaming Changing”

Qualcomm’s new smartphone chip that will power everything not made by Google or Apple is official and called the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Ooooooooh. Say it with me – ooooooooh.

There is big talk around this chip from Qualcomm, with references to it offering “game changing performance improvements” and being the “most powerful and world’s fastest mobile system-on-a-chip ever.” They are even going as far as saying this chip “revolutionizes mobile experiences.” See, big boy talk.

This new 3nm chip features Qualcomm’s new custom Oryon CPU, which Qualcomm claims is the “fastest mobile CPU in the world” with peak speeds up to 4.32GHz. Those big speeds mean a 45% boost in CPU performance, a 44% improvement in power efficiency, and supposed web browsing improvement of 62%.

For the GPU, Qulacomm doesn’t appear to want to name the specific Adreno chip, but they are suggesting a 40% improvement in power savings from it, plus a 40% performance improvement when gaming. It is the first with “sliced architecture” and has full support for Unreal Engine’s Nanite.

Of course, since this is 2024, there is AI stuff to talk through. Qualcomm’s AI Engine brings multimodal Gen AI that is powered by LMMs, LLMs, and LVMs, you know, all the multimodal models. This chip shows 45% improved performance per watt and a 45% faster Qualcomm Hexagon NPU. In other words, it’s faster on-device AI fun, if that’s your thing.

As for other specs, the Snapdragon 8 Elite supports WiFi 7, connects to the world via the Snapdragon X80 5G modem, and supports display resolutions of 4K at 60Hz and QHD+ up to 240Hz. There’s Bluetooth 6.0 and UWB support too, as well as support for aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless audio, USB 3.1 Gen 2, UFS 4.0, up to 24GB RAM, and Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5 technology.

Everything needed for a top tier chip is here, as you can imagine. For the dirty details, feel free to dive into Qualcomm’s product brief.

The first devices running the Snapdragon 8 Elite will come from ASUS, Honor, iQOO, OnePlus, OPPO, RealMe, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, and others in the “coming weeks.” We fully expect the OnePlus 13 to be announced shortly with this chip.

Oh, if you were wondering why it isn’t the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, I have no idea. I guess the thought is that this is such a big leap in performance and technology that it needed a new name.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Specs

// Qualcomm