It’s that time of year again—Qualcomm has revealed the chip that will power most high-end Android phones for the next 12 months or so. While the timing is predictable, almost everything else about this chip is a surprise, starting with the name. This is not the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4; it’s the Snapdragon 8 Elite, featuring the first mobile-optimized Oryon CPU cores.
The Oryon Age
The release of the Snapdragon 8 Elite will mark the most significant upgrade in Qualcomm’s mobile chips since the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The Elite branding and Oryon CPU are migrating down from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite for laptops. This chip began shipping in computers earlier this year, giving us the first Arm-based Windows machines that were actually worth using. That’s largely thanks to the Oryon CPU cores Qualcomm designed based on technology it acquired when purchasing Nuvia.
Qualcomm says it revamped the Oryon CPU core to be more efficient, making it suitable for use in a smartphone. With this more efficient chipset, Qualcomm says there is no longer any need for efficiency cores in the package, similar to MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 and 9400. The system-on-a-chip (SoC) features two second-gen Oryon CPU cores at the helm, clocked at 4.32GHz. It is backed up by six performance cores clocked at 3.53GHz. Qualcomm hasn’t named the performance cores, but we’d bet on the Cortex-A720 or something similar. The 3nm SoC has a total of 24M of L2 cache, which is split between the prime and performance cores. Each CPU island gets 12MB of the cache.
Credit: Qualcomm
The Adreno 830 GPU is also getting an upgrade. The Snapdragon 8 Elite features its first-ever sliced architecture, which has dedicated memory for each “slice.” The three slices each run at 1.1GHz. The result is improved power and efficiency, along with support for new game engines like Unreal 5.3 with Nanite and Unreal Chaos Physics. The GPU also gets a 35% bump in ray tracing performance.
Qualcomm has plenty of numbers to illustrate the improvements. We get a similar rundown every year, but the numbers are slightly better this time around. The CPU performance is up 45% and it’s 45% more efficient compared with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The Adreno GPU is 40% more powerful and efficient.
Even More AI
There’s no way Qualcomm would develop a new chip in 2024 without a big emphasis on artificial intelligence, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers. The updated Hexagon NPU has been further optimized for multimodal generative AI, giving users longer token inputs.
The new Hexagon has more scaler and vector cores, allowing for enhanced performance with multiple workloads. For example, the chip can more easily run computer vision alongside a generative experience. As a result, Qualcomm says the NPU is 45% faster with 45% improved performance per watt.
Credit: Qualcomm
Qualcomm also promises the first “AI ISP” in the Snapdragon 8 Elite. In this chip, the image signal processor (ISP) is linked directly to the NPU, a technology called Hexagon Direct Link. With the NPU integrated with the imaging pipeline, a device can automatically enhance anything in the frame, including color balance, sharpness, and brightness. Qualcomm boasts that the power of AI in your camera means you can film vivid 4K60 video in near darkness.
Connectivity does not escape Qualcomm’s all-consuming obsession with AI. The Snapdragon 8 Elite adds Wi-Fi 7 support, along with a new Snapdragon X80 5G modem. The new RF system connects to Qualcomm’s 5G AI Suite Gen 3, which improves speed and reliability through a poorly described AI process. The maximum throughput is 10Gbps down and 3.5Gbps up, but you won’t see those speeds in real life. It can also use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and UWB together for proximity and location, resulting in a 30% improvement in positioning accuracy.
Just Around the Corner
Qualcomm says you’ll see the Snapdragon 8 Elite in phones from Asus, Honor, OnePlus, Samsung, Xiaomi, and more. The first of these should be officially announced in the coming weeks.
Credit: Qualcomm
The first round of Snapdragon 8 Elite devices will probably include smaller OEMs like Asus, as well as those focusing on non-US markets like Honor and Xiaomi. The first major release will likely be either OnePlus 13 or Samsung Galaxy S25 in early 2025. While there may be some carefully curated benchmark numbers from Qualcomm’s ongoing Snapdragon Summit, we’ll have to wait for retail devices to know how the new chip really performs.
