The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC was announced as Qualcomm’s flagship chip at the Snapdragon Summit in Maui, Hawaii. Qualcomm calls it the “world’s fastest mobile system-on-a-chip,” following last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite.
CPU:
With a 3nm process and a third-gen Oryon CPU, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (SM8850-AC) boosts CPU performance by 20% over its predecessor. The CPU’s power efficiency has also been improved by 35%.
With the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, you get an octa-core CPU featuring a 2+6 configuration, where two prime cores are clocked at 4.6GHz and six performance cores are clocked at 3.62GHz.
GPU:
To handle graphically intensive tasks, the flagship chip also features an Adreno GPU. Qualcomm did not mention the GPU’s name in its press materials. Still, it stated that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 GPU delivers 23% better performance, a 20% improvement in power efficiency, and a 25% increase in Ray Tracing Capabilities. Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 increases gaming performance by 16%, which translates to approximately 1 hour and 48 minutes of additional playtime.
As for gaming, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 supports Unreal Engine 5 for console-quality visuals, while Tile Memory Heap optimises memory usage and bandwidth, and Mesh Shading optimises geometry grouping.
NPU:
In 2025, it is unavoidable that AI is incorporated into every hardware announcement, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is no exception. Combined with the chipset’s 37% faster Hexagon NPU, a personalised AI assistant is enabled through agentic AI assistants.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features Qualcomm’s Spectra AI ISP with triple 20-bit AI-ISPs, making it the first mobile platform to support Advanced Professional Video (APV).
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will power devices from global OEMs and smartphone brands, including vivo, iQOO, Oppo, Realme, OnePlus, Honor, ZTE, nubia, RedMagic, Xiaomi, Asus, Sony, and Samsung.
We will soon see devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
