The Snapdragon 8 Elite Aims to Supercharge Android Performance

Qualcomm’s adjacent large mobile spot is going elite. According to the chipmaker, the Android-centric mobile offering isn’t conscionable a measurement up from past year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. At its large Snapdragon Summit successful Maui, Qualcomm said the Snapdragon 8 Elite with its Oryon-based CPU combined with the adjacent measurement successful its Adreno GPU should beryllium much almighty than immoderate different existent mobile chip, and bash it with amended powerfulness optimization.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is utilizing the in-house Oryon CPU cores—now connected mobile aft debuting with the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus—alongside the adjacent measurement successful its Adreno 830 GPU for artillery ray tracing connected a TSMC 3nm processor. Of course, this is the epoch of on-device AI truthful Qualcomm is besides claiming the adjacent measurement successful its Hexagon NPU should beryllium 45% faster to enactment “multi-modal” AI. The existent prima of the amusement is the CPU, sporting a full of six cores with 4 show cores that tin scope up to 4.32 GHz timepiece speeds.

© Image: Qualcomm

Qualcomm released a slew of benchmarks for its caller chip, but of people you shouldn’t instrumentality those astatine look value. Suffice it to say, Qualcomm is claiming it tin bushed the iPhone 16 Pro with the A18 Pro spot successful multicore settings. The Snapdragon 8 Elite contains 24MB of L2 cache, though 12 MB of that is for the 4 show cores. The caller spot stack should enactment upwards of 44% amended powerfulness ratio than the past generation.

Adreno contains 3 slices moving 1.10 GHz timepiece speeds. Qualcomm says the spot should enactment up to QHD+ resolutions astatine 240 Hz refresh rates. This mentation of Adreno should effect successful a stated 40% leap successful show implicit past year’s chip, positive a 35% summation successful show with ray tracing. It’s besides the archetypal mobile spot to enactment Unreal Engine 5.3 Nanite.

All of that sounds impressive. But portion it tin enactment big-name games, it inactive doesn’t mean your telephone volition beryllium the premier mode to play them. We’ll beryllium awaiting the adjacent slate of gaming phones to showcase the powerfulness of Snapdragon 8 Elite.

As for connectivity, the Snapdragon X Elite is lodging the X80 5G Modem and enactment for wifi 7 connected a FastConnect 7900 antenna. The different extremity of the spot uses Qualcomm’s Spectra ISP for photos, with claims it has amended capabilities for low-light photograph captures and representation sizes up to 320 MP, if immoderate phone-maker dares to marque a sensor that tin enactment that size.

Qualcomm Hits Back astatine Intel Over Lunar Lake, Claims Competitor ‘Cherry Picked’ Data

Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo

At its yearly Snapdragon Summit successful Hawaii, Qualcomm came retired successful a warring mood. The U.S.-based chipmaker was rubbed earthy by Intel’s caller motorboat of its Lunar Lake chips for small, bladed PCs. The institution is present claiming Intel got it wrong, that its Snapdragon X Elite chips are inactive the champion for powerfulness ratio and performance, adjacent if lone parts of its claims really substance for consumers’ adjacent prime of PC.

Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon chips were expected to beryllium the gyration lightweight Windows PCs needed. They promised amended show than the accepted X86-based CPUs from Intel and AMD on with ludicrous artillery life. To sour the mood, Intel debuted Lunar Lake, claiming it could lucifer oregon bushed the Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite and inactive marque monolithic gains connected artillery life.

Competition being what it is, Qualcomm wasn’t blessed with Intel’s presentation. Qualcomm’s elder manager of engineering, Sriram Parthasarathy, told a sheet of reporters that Intel “cherry picked” SKUs to comparison its caller chips to. Parthasarathy complained Intel compared its flagship chips to the Snapdragon X1E-80-100, not the X1E-84.

Among respective complaints, Qualcomm said its top-end Snapdragon X Elite tin outperform a top-end Intel Core Ultra 288V connected Cinebench R24 azygous halfway benchmarks and outclass it successful multicore settings. It besides claims its middle-range X1E-80 spot tin beryllium 92% faster than the Ultra 7 256V, some tested connected a Dell XPS 13 from this year.

© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

The happening is, you can’t presently find a PC lodging Lunar Lake’s flagship chip, the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V. Most laptop OEMS are advertizing a Core Ultra 7 256V oregon 258V. I’ve had a hands-on league with a Zenbook S 14 with the 256V, and tin accidental that the show was solid, though not needfully overwhelming. The different large assertion was that the X Elite chips are inactive much powerfulness businesslike than the mid-range Intel variety.

Intel has routinely told reviewers its nonstop examination with the Snapdragon X Elite would beryllium the 258V, a spot that Qualcomm failed to usage successful this latest circular of benchmark comparisons. The lone happening Qualcomm has to spell connected for comparisons to the Ultra 9 288V is simply a YouTube video from PCWorld comparing aggregate chips. Intel, of course, shares its ain benchmarks.

All this consternation implicit chips is getting ridiculous. Very small astir this backmost and distant implicit each company’s high-end chips impacts customers since cipher tin bargain a laptop with them. Qualcomm is right, it’s hard arsenic hellhole to find a caller ultralight PC with higher-end Lunar Lake chips. The aforesaid tin beryllium said astir its X1E-84-100 mentation of the Snapdragon X Elite. Most systems you’ll find for merchantability online are going to usage the X1E-78 instead, similar the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. The lone existent spot you tin find the X1E-84 is connected a Galaxy Book4 Edge, which happens to beryllium the PC that Qualcomm utilized for its benchmarks.

We whitethorn yet spot a Microsoft Surface Laptop with a higher-end Lunar Lake chip, but for close present the laptop makers don’t look to cognize however to merchantability a higher-end chip. None of this contention matters if consumers won’t ever beryllium capable to usage the CPUs chipmakers motorboat each year.