
Qualcomm is hosting its annual tech Snapdragon summit a bit early this year (October 21-23), where the company has confirmed to introduce its next flagship mobile chip, featuring Oryon CPU cores, similar to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite/Plus chips for laptops. Considering the nomenclature that the brand follows, it was expected to be called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. However, new reports hint that Qualcomm’s next flagship mobile chip could be called the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Just like the last few years, Xiaomi’s flagship smartphone, Xiaomi 15, will be the first brand to introduce a smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, reports Smartprix. Brands like OnePlus and iQOO will consequently introduce Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered phones in China, just in time for the Chinese 11/11 festival, also known as Single’s Day.
This boost in performance is the result of the custom ARM-based Oryon CPU cores, which offer enhanced performance and efficiency. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is reported to include an octa-core CPU cluster with two high-performance cores, a clock speed of 4 GHz, and six efficiency cores with a clock speed of 2.7 GHz. The processor is said to have a power budget of 14.2 watts, indicating most phones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip are likely to include bigger batteries.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is said to be fabbed using TSMC’s N3E manufacturing process, making it one of the most efficient chips in the market. On top of that, we can expect to see new Adreno graphics with enhanced ray-tracing, a new network modem, an LTE modem, and enhanced imaging capabilities.
According to a Weibo post by a user named DCS, the Snapdragon 8 Elite costs $190, making it almost 20 per cent more expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. While Qualcomm never publicly unveiled these prices, the expensive price tag will be passed on to the users, and phones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite are likely to cost a bit more than smartphones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.
The Xiaomi 15, OnePlus 13, iQOO 13, and Honor Magic 7 are expected to be some of the first smartphones to launch with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, followed by the Galaxy S25 series and more.