Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 8 Elite AP, heading for the Galaxy S25 Ultra early next year
As expected, during the Snapdragon Summit today, Qualcomm introduced its latest flagship application processor (AP), the Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform. Don't let the new name fool you, this chipset is the successor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. What is noteworthy, even more than the new moniker, is the use of Qualcomm's second-generation custom Oryon CPU cores for the first time in a mobile chipset.
The first mobile Oryon CPU core offers a 45% boost in performance while delivering 44% more power efficiency. The Adreno GPU provides a 40% hike in performance and a 40% gain in efficiency. According to Qualcomm, system-wide there is an overall power savings of 27%. The maximum clock speed of the Oryon CPU cores is 4.32GHz.
"We are so excited to bring the power of Qualcomm Oryon to our Snapdragon mobile platforms for the first time. Earlier this year we debuted it in PCs, delivering remarkable experiences and unparalleled battery life to PC users, energizing the industry and getting the attention of consumers. 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"-Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
With the new Oryon CPU core, Qualcomm says to expect the Snapdragon 8 Elite to show improvements with a 45% increase in both single-core and multi-core performance and a whopping 62% improvement in web browsing. The AP has shown a 40% hike in Gaming performance and a 35% improvement in RayTracing. The latter is used to show the path of light in a game including how the light interacts with objects in a scene. The bottom line? More realistic reflections, refractions, and shadows in mobile games. Speaking of gaming, the chip delivers up to 2.5 more hours of battery life for game play.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite's AI ISP (Image Signal Processor) is deeply integrated with the Hexagon NPU for enhanced, intuitive capture. Other photography-related features with the chip's ISP include the use of Insight AI to enhance natural skin and sky tones even in the most challenging conditions. The Video Object Eraser can remove unwanted elements from your videos right on-device. With the ISP, you'll be able to capture vivid videos at 4K60 FPS, even if you are almost in the dark.
"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."-Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
The chip also features an improved NPU (neural engine) that has additional cores and is up to 45% faster. The Snapdragon X80 5G modem also uses AI to manage multiantenna connections to get the clearest signals. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are integrated so that calls leaving Bluetooth range are immediately turned over to Wi-Fi for a seamless transition. The modem has a Peak Download Speed of 10 Gbps and a Peak Upload Speed of 3.5 Gbps.
Infographic for the Snapdragon 8 Elite application processor. | Image credit-Qualcomm
We expect to see the Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform power many flagship Android phones next year including the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold, Galaxy Z Flip 7, and the OnePlus 13 to name a few. The chip is manufactured by TSMC using its second-generation 3nm process node (N3E).
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