Qualcomm is expected to unveil the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 in a few months, but the 8 Elite Gen 3 has already started surfacing online. Leaker Digital Chat Station took to Weibo to suggest that Qualcomm may release two versions of SM8950, aka the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 3 SoC.
The chipset is expected to launch by the end of 2027 in these two variants. While one variant could be reserved for top-tier flagships, the other could be used in slightly less expensive ones.
This could make it similar to Apple's nomenclature where the vanilla A18 is used to power the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus. Meanwhile, the A18 Pro powers the more premium iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max.
Getting into the technicalities a bit, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 3 is expected to be based on TSMC's 2nm node and therefore will cost quite a lot. This could shoot up the prices of upcoming flagships, causing firms to opt for the slightly watered-down version of the chipset to save on costs.
For those unaware, Qualcomm does have two versions of the Snapdragon 8 Elite – one is an 8-core CPU while the other is a 7-core CPU. However, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 3's lower-powered version could be called something else altogether. Now, this other chipset will bear the model number SM8945.
We can expect the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 3 to power the OnePlus 15, Galaxy S27 (if Exynos 2600's yield falters), and Xiaomi 17 series. The SM8945 should still sit about Qualcomm's 8s SoCs, but it should be interesting to see how different the two variants will be in terms of performance.
Qualcomm will launch the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 a little earlier this year at the Snapdragon Summit. It's expected to bring over 20% gains in performance due to higher clock speeds alongside architectural enhancements and a larger cache size.
