After shaking up the PC market with its Snapdragon
Behind the war between the many smartphone manufacturers, another battle is being played out: those of the designers of the processors that power them. And in this area, the three major players (MediaTek, Qualcomm and Apple) continue to compete in technical prowess to attract their customers. Taking advantage of its annual Snapdragon Summit conference which is currently taking place in Hawaii, the American giant Qualcomm has just unveiled the SoC which is already shaping up to be the star processor for high-end mobiles which will appear on the shelves starting next month and throughout 2025, the Snapdragon 8 Elite. This succeeds the already prestigious Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with a name that brings it a little closer to the processors designed for PCs and inaugurated last spring, the Snapdragon X Elite. And for good reason since this SoC is placed just halfway between last year’s 8 Gen 3 and the X Elite of PCs.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite: performance improving significantly
This name change is not trivial. It actually reflects the integration of a version optimized for smartphones of the Oryon cores present in the X Elite chips. The result is obviously increased performance. The founder thus announces a jump of no less than 45% in power compared to 8 Gen 3. The SoC relies on two very high performance Oryon cores clocked up to 4.32 GHz and six high performance cores clocked, them, up to 3.53 GHz.
The graphics part (GPU) remains entrusted to an Adreno processor which, according to the founder, displays an increase in performance of around 40% all the same. As for the neural processor (NPU), it is 45% more compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
We note in passing the absence of so-called efficient cores designed to process simple tasks while consuming less energy. And yet, according to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Elite would be less power hungry than its predecessor. For the same task, the CPU would consume 44% less energy, the GPU 40% and the NPU 45%. In total, the SoC as a whole would be 27% more economical than its predecessor. The reason for this small feat lies in one number: 3 nm. Indeed, like Apple’s A18 chip and the brand new MediaTek Dimensity 9400, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is engraved in 3 nanometers. An engraving process that allows more transistors to be assembled on the same surface and therefore saves energy. This process is also complemented by a homemade recipe to optimize data management between cores. However, Qualcomm did not mention the heating level of its new chip. An essential point in smartphones which focus year after year on ever thinner cases in which heat dissipation becomes very complicated.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite: a riot of power but for what purpose?
Every year, smartphones prove to be a little more efficient than their predecessors. An immutable law which has tended since last year to give more and more latitude to artificial intelligence. Equipped with the new engine designed by Qualcomm, the next high-end smartphones should therefore feel even more comfortable in handling AI in order to process it more effectively locally, on the device, without having to resort to operations carried out in the cloud. The generation of images or texts should be much faster. Furthermore, the in-house Hexagone image coprocessor benefits from a direct connection to the neural processor. According to Qualcomm, this link will allow you to apply the magic eraser recipe – used to remove an element from a photo – in videos.
Finally, the GPU, which also benefits from a nice increase in its performance, should further improve game management. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is also the first processor for smartphones to be able to manage the Nanite technology of the Unreal Engine 5 rendering engine. Present on game consoles such as the PS5, Nanite optimizes the detail of the renderings pixel by pixel, which gives visually very successful games.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite: which will be the first smartphones to benefit from it?
Like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 last year, the Snapdragon 8 Elite will be integrated into a few high-end smartphones. The Chinese Honor has already indicated that the new Qualcomm chip will be used in its next premium models in the Magic7 range, the launch date of which in China is set for October 30. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is also expected in the OnePlus 13, the ROG Phone 9 from Asus as well as the Xiaomi 15 or even certain models from Vivo. On the Samsung side, it should appear at the beginning of 2025 in the Galaxy S25.