Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 8 Elite for Smartphones

Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform, which it describes as the fastest-ever mobile system-on-a-chip (SoC). It’s based on the same processor architecture that the firm used for its PC-based Snapdragon X Elite chips.

“Earlier this year we debuted the Qualcomm Oryon in PCs, delivering remarkable experiences and unparalleled battery life to PC users, energizing the industry and getting the attention of consumers,” Qualcomm senior vice president Chris Patrick said. “Today, our second generation of the Qualcomm Oryon CPU debuts in our flagship Mobile Platform – it’s a major leap forward, and we expect consumers to be thrilled with the new experiences enabled by our CPU technology. With leading CPU, GPU and NPU capabilities, the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers dramatic performance enhancements and power efficiency 3. In addition, it revolutionizes mobile experiences by offering personalized, multi-modal generative AI directly on the device enabling the understanding of speech, context, and images to enhance everything from productivity to creativity tasks while prioritizing user privacy.”

The Snapdragon 8 Elite offers a 45 percent performance boost over its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, along with 44 percent greater power efficiency. It includes a next-generation Qualcomm Adreno GPUwith a  40 percent performance improvement and 40 percent improved efficiency. And its Qualcomm Hexagon NPU is the fastest yet, with a 45 percent AI performance improvement with 45 percent better performance per watt. System-wide, the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers overall power savings of 27 percent, Qualcomm says.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite supports Unreal Engine 5 Nanite for “film-quality” 3D, plus the Unreal Chaos Physics Engine, and Qualcomm aptX Lossless with up to 24-bit 48 kHz Bluetooth music streaming and up to 24-bit 96 kHz Wi-Fi music streaming. Its integrated Qualcomm FastConnect 7900 Mobile provides multi-gigabit 5G speeds, 30 percent more accurate location positioning, and 40 percent better efficiency.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite will be used in flagship smartphones by all the major Android hardware makers–ASUS, Honor, iQOO, OnePlus, OPPO, RealMe, Samsung, Vivo, and Xiaomi–in the months ahead. You can learn more on the Qualcomm website.