Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Arrives With 20% More Performance

Contrary to expectations, Qualcomm didn't unveil its new flagship chipset on the first day of the Snapdragon Summit. Instead, it took until the final day to finally reveal the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. The new device merges the old Snapdragon Gen moniker with the Snapdragon 8 Elite that debuted last year. Qualcomm states this is the "world's fastest mobile SoC" ever made.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (SM8850-AC) is built on a 3nm process. It uses the new 3rd-gen Oryon CPU. Qualcomm says this chip is 20% faster than the one before it. The CPU is also 35% more efficient, so it can do more work while using less power.

The SD8 Elite Gen 5 comes with an Octa-Core CPU architecture in a 2+6 configuration. It means there are two prime cores with a clock speed of 4.6 GHz. There are also 6 performance cores clocked at up to 3.62 GHz.

The new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 comes with an Adreno GPU for heavy graphics and gaming. Qualcomm did not share the exact GPU model, but it did highlight some key numbers. The company says the GPU is now 23% faster and uses 20% less power than before. Ray tracing, which makes games look more realistic, is also improved by 25%.

The CPU side also got better, now running 16% more efficiently. For gamers, this means more playtime without draining the battery too fast. Qualcomm claims the chip can give up to 1 hour and 48 minutes of extra gaming compared to the last model.

When it comes to gaming, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 offers support to Unreal Engine 5 games, delivering modern console-like visuals. The Tile Memory Heap optimizes memory usage and bandwidth. The Mesh Shading allos developers to group geometry more efficiently.

Qualcomm also leaned into AI, one of the hottest trends in phones today. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 comes with a faster Hexagon NPU, now 37% quicker than before. It also has an updated Qualcomm Sensing Hub. Together, these parts make it possible to run smart AI helpers that can adapt to each user and give more personal features.

"Through continuous on-device learning and real-time sensing, multimodal AI models understand the user, enabling proactive recommendations and situation-based prompt enhancements—with user data staying on device," said Qualcomm in a press release.  

When it comes to imaging, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 comes with Qualcomm's Spectra AI ISP with triple 20-bit AI-ISPs and Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec. It's the world's first mobile platform to feature APV support.

Qualcomm took the opportunity to share some of the global OEMs and smartphone brands bringing the new chip. The list includes vivo, iQOO, Oppo, Realme, OnePlus, Honor, ZTE, Nubia, RedMagic, Xiaomi, ASUS, Sony, and Samsung. The first smartphones with the CPU will come in the coming days, but the "First" spot already belongs to Xiaomi, which unveiled the Xiaomi 17 series shortly after this announcement.