Qualcomm will move tertiarily into the mobile chipset market by launching the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is technically a rebranding of its prequel, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but with major technological advancements on speed, efficiency, as well as its architecture. The team will divide the overview into 3 main elements: Snapdragon 8 Elite’s technical features, the impact of its advancements in the smartphone market, and how the upcoming 8 Elite positions Qualcomm to maintain its reputation as one of the first companies leading the mobile chipset industry at that time.
Snapdragon 8 Elite: A Step Beyond the Gen 3
Qualcomm 8 Elite – the follow-up after the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which was itself quite a lightening-fast chipset – looks likely to be anything but just a minor step-up out the gate. We’ve seen reports and leaks that, rather than tweaking the Gen 3 under the hood to make it faster, Snapdragon is going in for a ground-up rebuild to stretch its potential to the max. The company has super-scaled down its 4nm manufacturing process to a 3nm process that it will use for the 8 Elite.
The move to 3nm allows significantly more transistors to fit in the same silicon area, improving power efficiency and potentially performance as a given. Qualcomm claims a 56 per cent boost in performance over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, statistics that put its upcoming 8 Elite alongside Apple’s A18 Bionic chip (based on the 3nm process line) – a first for Qualcomm, as it has never competed head-on with Apple in the high-end. If the claims stand up, Qualcomm’s new chip architecture will put it on a par with Apple to offer both better processing grunt and improved longevity when it comes to battery life – factors that influence the decisions of the high-end
Snapdragon 8 Elite: CPU and GPU Improvements
An upcoming chip codenamed Snapdragon 8 Elite is rumoured to have a refined CPU and GPU that out-perform the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Renders from LetsGoDigitalAn upcoming mobile chip from Qualcomm, called the Snapdragon 8 Elite, could have a CPU and GPU that far exceed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The chip could sport Qualcomm’s custom Oryon CPU cores, originally developed by the startup Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired. The Oryon cores are expected to outperform the traditional ARM design of the CPU cores used in previous Snapdragon chips.
Experts believe that this Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU has a core configuration of two prime mid-tier cores clocked at 4.09GHz or higher and six mid-tier cores running at 2.78GHz. Some sources, including Gizmodo, claim that the two fastest CPU cores could 4.37GHz, which would make it one of the fastest mobile CPUs on the planet. This would be a monster increase in single-core performance, which is the most important benchmark for running apps, gaming and multitasking.
According to benchmarks from Geekbench, the Snapdragon 8 Elite clocked scores of 3011 in the single-core test (a 35 per cent increase over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) and 9706 in the multi-core test (a 30 per cent improvement over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3).
GPU-wise, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is anticipated to feature an Adreno 830, a big step up from the Adreno 750 of the Gen 3. The Adreno 830 will have a GPU clock speed of 1.25 GHz, and with hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing for more realistic lighting and shadow effects in graphically taxing games and applications. Expect big improvements (43-56% in graphs) for advanced graphics compared to the previous generations. The Adreno 830 will play a huge part of the is bound to be the pinnacle of Android mobile gaming and multimedia.
Enhanced AI and Machine Learning Capabilities
Another important field where the Snapdragon 8 Elite is likely to excel is in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Qualcomm has been advancing the AI features of its Snapdragon chips in successive generations of the product, and the 8 Elite will likely continue this trend with an even more powerful Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The Hexagon NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Elite will allow faster and more efficient AI processing for features such as real-time language translation, advanced camera applications, and advanced voice assistants.
AI and machine learning are essential for the latest smartphones. Their latest Snapdragon 8 Elite includes an enhanced NPU that allows for more, faster and more accurate on-device AI processing. With the Snapdragon 8 Elite, cabinet: Clean is now NPU: faster, more accurate, better user experience. But what does that actually mean? It means faster and more accurate AI processing will enable better performance with greater battery life. Real-time photo and video enhancements (bokeh effect, automated object recognition, etc) will be faster and more accurate in-between shutter presses.
Ray Tracing and Gaming Enhancements
According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is a true leapfrog over the previous generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and specifically in gaming performance. A standout feature is hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing – the kind of technology based on the way that light behaves in nature. Objects affect the light that passes through or around them. When the light bounces back from a surface, it reproduces the size and shape of the surfaces that light rays passed over. Computers simulate this behaviour with trillions of tiny calculations, making it possible to model realistic materials such as velvet, glass, ceramic, hair and more.
The resulting scene creates more lifelike lighting and environmental effects in games. The effect is more realistic because it’s closer to what actually happens in nature. Photons bounce off surfaces and then interact with other surfaces around them, metaphorically pinging around the scene with a ton of details and action, far more so than what you see with regular mobile gaming graphics.
Optimising the game for Ray Tracing allows the Adreno 830 GPU’s Ray Tracing support to create more immersive games. This is great because the CPU speed has also risen, as has the speed of the GPU. The GPU speeds at 1.25Gdragon 8 Elite is ready take over as the go-to mobile gaming SoC. GPU speeds are 56 per cent faster than those of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, giving it enough horsepower to run the most graphically demanding games in the market with higher framerates and even higher resolutions, but without redeeming the same visual experience.
Power Efficiency and Battery Life
An additional one of those key benefits of transitioning to the 3nm manufacturing process is better power efficiency. Thanks to slightly smaller transistors, the Snapdragon 8 Elite will be able to perform the same work as an ARM-based CPU of the same generation, but using less power. Battery life is quite literally a major issue when it comes to mobile users and affects their general level of satisfaction with a phone. Qualcomm has made this an explicit goal for Snapdragon 8 Elite, and with Oryon cores combined with the 3 nm process node, we can expect substantial power efficiency gains.
Allied with a more efficient CPU and GPU, the Snapdr’s enhanced AI will enable better battery management. AI-driven optimisations can sense and model how a user interacts with their phone and the kind of tasks they’re performing. The more data it has, the more accurately it can limit power use to only the amount needed for the task, and then it can turn off when it doesn’t need it.. Such optimisations will pay off for heavy lifting tasks such as gaming and video streaming applications as well as more power-hungry AR ones.
Conclusion
The Snapdr might be Qualcomm’s best chipset ever. The move to the 3nm node and the Oryon CPU cores, along with the Adreno 830 GPU and a number of other tweaks, positions the 8 Elite to compete with TSMC’s and Apple’s upcoming offerings.. By any measure, it looks significantly faster than the existing-high-end, with improvements in everything from raw performance to AI tasks, battery life and comparable power draw when the phone is under stress. The Snapdragon 8 Elite promises it all, and phones like the Xiaomi 15 and the OnePlus 13 will be the first to benefit from this Qualcomm-fueled leap of faith in the high
