Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Qualcomm today announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 to power the upcoming generation of Android smartphones. 

On the naming front, Qualcomm last week explained how “Gen 5” is in reference to this chip being the “fifth generation of [its] premium 8-series platforms” since the shift to “single digit naming.” This chip follows the Snapdragon 8: Gen 1 (in 2021), Gen 2 (2022), Gen 3 (2023), and Elite (2024).

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is built on a 3nm process with a third-generation Oryon CPU (the first gen debuted on PC and second on mobile). There are 2 Prime cores (up to 4.6GHz) and 6 Performance cores (up to 3.62GHz). Compared to last generation, Qualcomm touts a 20% performance boost, while being 35% more efficient. 

There’s a “next-generation” Adreno GPU with a 23% increase in overall performance, and consuming 20% less power. A 1.2GHz clock speed is noted, while there’s new Adreno High Performance Memory (HPM) for 18 MB of dedicated memory. This cache boosts bandwidth, “reduces fetch latency for ultra-responsive gameplay,” and results in 10% power savings. 

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The Hexagon NPU is 37% faster, while offering 16% more performance per watt. The focus this year is on bringing agentic AI to your device. 

Android 16 introduced support for the Advanced Professional Video (APV), and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the first to support this near-lossless video capture. Then there’s a “fully computational video pipeline” called Dragon Fusion (from ArcSoft) where every frame is said to have the same visual quality and detail as a snapshot. There are also “richer colors, detailed shadows, and striking highlights while maintaining contrast.” This is made possible by the Hexagon NPU and latest Spectra ISP, which now has a 20-bit pipeline for 4x dynamic range. 

Snapdragon Audio Sense brings “pro-level sound” in any environment with features like state-of-the-art wind noise rejection, audio zoom, and HDR audio. The chip processes the output from piezo-electric MEMS microphones. Qualcomm goes as far as saying it eliminates the need for a lavalier or shotgun microphone. 

Expect Honor, iQOO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, POCO, realme, REDMI, RedMagic, ROG, Samsung, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, with the first devices launching in the “coming days.” 

Note: Qualcomm paid for travel and accommodations for this launch event, but had no input on editorial content.