Qualcomm has to wait an entire year before it showcases the capabilities of its first 2nm chipset, but later this month, it is expected to introduce a slightly more powerful version of its current-generation flagship SoC, the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The latter’s direct successor is rumored to be named the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, but in terms of energy efficiency, the latest rumor presents a disappointing outlook, claiming that it will consume around the same wattage as its predecessor.
The lack of efficiency improvements could be due to Qualcomm bumping up the frequencies of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s performance and efficiency cores while using just an updated version of TSMC’s 3nm process
A rumor from Weibo’s Digital Chat Station talks about the performance improvements arriving to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and while that is a plus to have, his claims are also accompanied by a sliver of disappointment. It appears that the Snapdragon 8 Elite will share the same power consumption as the new flagship that is slated to be unveiled on September 23, which could be the consequence of using TSMC’s third-generation 3nm process, also known as ‘N3P.’
In a nutshell, the technology is an optical shrink of the semiconductor manufacturer’s second-generation 3nm process, bringing a mere 5 percent performance improvement over the same power consumption. Alternatively, this node can deliver between a 5-10 percent improvement in battery life savings at the same clock speeds, summarizing that Qualcomm’s 2026 flagship silicon should display better attributes because of the transition from 3nm to 2nm.
To be fair, San Diego is just making a small lithography jump from what is, on paper, the same manufacturing process. However, that is not to say that Qualcomm will not squeeze every drop of performance from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 because even an underclocked version tested on the Galaxy S26 Edge with its performance cores running at 4.00GHz instead of 4.74GHz managed to score higher than the Snapdragon 8 Elite in both single-core and multi-core tests.
Thankfully, since we are living in the age of silicon-carbon battery technology, several of Qualcomm’s Chinese partners will be more than willing to incorporate their devices with massive cells to offset the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 running at its maximum potential, since those smartphones will continue to last for hours. If there are any further differences that we have yet to stumble upon, we will update our readers soon.
News Source: Digital Chat Station
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