Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5: More power, more AI, more multimedia

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After Mediatek with the Dimensity 9500, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the next high-end processor for smartphones and tablets. At the Snapdragon Summit 2025, the American chip manufacturer presented its new processor, which could be launched on the market in the first smartphones in the coming weeks.

The new chip brings improvements in several areas. These relate not only to pure computing and graphics performance and AI but also to multimedia, especially video and audio.

Large cores with a fast clock rate

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has an octa-core CPU with a maximum clock speed of 4.6 GHz. This high clock rate is achieved by the two Oryon Prime cores. They are flanked by six premium cores that run at up to 3.62 GHz. The L2 cache is 12 MBytes per cluster. Qualcomm promises performance increases of 20 percent in single-threading and 17 percent in multi-threading. The 1.2 GHz GPU in sliced architecture is said to run 23 percent faster than its predecessor. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is manufactured using the 3-nanometre process, utilizes the Armv9 architecture. However, Qualcomm remains vague as to which version exactly. The processor also supports the SVE and SME extensions, but not SME in the new SME2 version, which Arm uses in the new Lumex cores.

According to Qualcomm, the new Hexagon NPU for AI tasks calculates 37 percent faster than the one in last year's Snapdragon 8 Elite. Qualcomm has optimized the chip for Agentic AI, among other things. Through constant on-device learning, i.e., without the data leaving the device, Snapdragon smartphones should be able to provide faster and more precise proactive recommendations and situation-based assistance without leaking personal data.

New for video and audio

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the first mobile SoC to support the Advanced Professional Video Codec (AVP). Due to the high bit rates, video material recorded with this is well suited for post-processing to realize different image styles. The complete computational video pipeline allows each individual frame to be extracted and edited. With Qualcomm's Expanded Personal Area Network (XPAN), the smartphone connects to headphones via 6 GHz. XPAN supports lossless streaming at 24 bit and 96 kHz, so you can still be reached for calls and messages.

The X85 modem from Qualcomm transmits via 5G with Release 17 and 18 and has its processor with AI support. This should ensure faster network connections and less latency. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 uses Wifi 7 for Wi-Fi, with Qualcomm claiming to have reduced power consumption by up to 40 percent. Bluetooth 6.0 is available for close range.

Devices with the 8 Elite Gen 5 can control external displays with 4K/120 fps and 8K/120 fps. The SoC supports LPDDR5X memory at 5300 MHz, with an upper limit of 24 GB of RAM.

First smartphones coming soon

Numerous smartphone manufacturers are expected to announce the first devices with the new Snapdragon in the coming days. Xiaomi is likely to be one of the first with the upcoming Xiaomi 17, while Qualcomm also has Honor, Oppo, OnePlus, Sony, and others on its list of partners. It will probably be exciting at the end of January when Android market leader Samsung presents its Galaxy S26 series, as the Koreans are likely to use an Exynos processor developed in-house, unlike the S25 models. Whether the Exynos 2600 will then be sold in all S26 smartphones and in all markets is still unclear. It is quite possible that in Europe you will have to reach for the expensive Galaxy S26 Ultra to get the Snapdragon instead of the Exynos.

Note: Qualcomm has covered the costs of travel and accommodation for two editors to the Snapdragon Summit.

(sht)