Every year, Qualcomm introduces a new high-end Snapdragon chip for Android smartphones. However, the presentation of the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, made in Hawaii this week, was very special. Indeed, this new chip includes many very interesting innovations which will allow future Android flagships to have very significant performance gains. First of all, Qualcomm is moving from 4nm to 3nm engraving, which makes it possible to increase the density of transistors. But beyond that, the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip is the first mobile platform to use Qualcomm’s Oryon processor core.
Oryon comes to smartphones
As a reminder, this core allowed Qualcomm to offer chips for Windows PCs capable of competing with the performance of Macs. And now this heart is also available on mobile. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is quite simply the best mobile chip ever produced to date. In any case, the figures presented by the company are impressive. With a clock speed of 4.32 GHz, the Snapdragon 8 Elite has Single Core and Multi-Core performance increased by 45% compared to the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 which equips a good number of high-end smartphones of 2023. Performance for web browsing has also been increased by 63%.
Fine-tuned for sharper visuals and smoother gameplay, our first-ever sliced architecture Adreno GPU inside of #Snapdragon 8 Elite features higher clock-speed frequencies for more raw power, higher frame rates & improved gameplay. 🙌 👾 pic.twitter.com/Bo0KErlikE
— Snapdragon (@Snapdragon) October 21, 2024
For video games, the GPU performs 40% better, with a 35% increase in Ray Tracing performance. Qualcomm has also made great efforts when it comes to energy saving. Indeed, the CPU is said to have improved power efficiency by 44%, while the GPU power efficiency has been improved by 40%. And the company has not forgotten artificial intelligence, since the Snapdragon 8 Elite has a new NPU (a component dedicated to AI) which is 45% more efficient. This component would allow future smartphones to leverage generative AI-based assistants that are multimodal (capable of processing other formats in addition to voice or text).
This is the @Snapdragon 8 Elite 🔥
🎯 44% faster CPU
🎯 40% faster GPU
🎯 45% faster NPU
🎯 35% faster Ray Tracing
🎯 33% ISP improvement
🎯 FastConnect 7900
🎯 Snapdragon X80 modem #Snapdragon8Elite #SnapdragonSummit pic.twitter.com/izvWK3jtBL— Prabhu Ram (@prabhu_ram) October 22, 2024
A huge leap for Android smartphones
The tests of this new Qualcomm processor were carried out on a reference smartphone, but the new smartphones which will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip are already in development. Qualcomm cites in particular the brands ASUS, Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, RedMagic, redmi, realme, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE. And the first commercial product using this new chip will arrive in the coming weeks.
In any case, thanks to the Oryon chip and the performance gains of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, we should witness a small revolution in the Android ecosystem, at least in the high-end segment. And this concerns general performance as well as mobile gaming or artificial intelligence.
It remains to be seen what the actual performance of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip will be on manufacturers’ smartphones. And it will also be interesting to observe the impact that the arrival of this new chip will have on the prices of the new models. Indeed, it is possible that this chip costs more than the Snapdragon 8 gen 3.
- Qualcomm plans to revolutionize the high-end Android smartphone market with its Snapdragon 8 Elite chip
- This new chip benefits from 3nm engraving and uses the Oryon processor core
- Compared to the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 which equips a good part of the high-end smartphones of 2024, the Snapdragon 8 Elite has Single Core performance and
- Multi-Core increased by 45% and a GPU that is 40% more efficient
- Qualcomm is also offering more computing power for AI, which will allow developers to deliver even more powerful features
- The first smartphones using this chip should arrive in the coming weeks
