Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Announced with 3rd Gen Oryon Cores

After countless leaks and rumours, Qualcomm has finally unveiled its flagship chipset for 2025, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. As expected from a new processor, it brings improvements throughout, which could make it one of the fastest, if not the fastest, mobile processors on the market. Here's a quick rundown of 8 Elite Gen 5's capabilities and specifications.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features 3rd Gen Oryon cores

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is an octa-core chipset based on TSMC's 3nm N3P process. It consists of Qualcomm's latest 3rd Gen Oryon cores in a 2 + 6 configuration. Two of these cores are clocked at 4.61GHz while the rest are clocked at 3.63GHz.

The third-gen Oryon cores from the Nuvia team promise a 20% uplift in single-core performance and 17% in multi-core. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 benchmarks claims the chipset is 35% more efficient in CPU-related tasks and 20% more efficient in GPU tasks. Overall, Qualcomm claims the 8 Elite Gen 5 boasts a 16% improvement from its predecessor, labelling it as the world's fastest mobile CPU.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 brings Adreno 840 and new Hexagon NPU

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 boasts an Adreno 840 GPU, which the firm claims brings a 23% performance uplift while being 20% power efficient.

The new Hexagon NPU in Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 promises a 16% bump in AI performance per watt and a 100 TOPS NPU. This means the processor should perform well in AI compute tasks, which could be great given the AI-first approach of smartphone manufacturers these days.

Qualcomm also seems to be taking the Agentic AI route with a whopping 37% improvement in the overall NPU performance, with the ability to process 220 tokens per second. With 64-bit memory virtualisation and a larger 32K context window, the processor will likely excel at AI tasks.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 gets a better ISP but same modem

 The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 gets a 20-bit triple ISP, which could bring improvements to the dynamic range. Qualcomm is also partnering with Arcsoft for Dragon Fusion technology to give the processor a fully computational video pipeline, just like professional cameras. The technology uses AI tone mapping to improve colours, shadows and highlights.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is also the first processor to feature Samsung's APV (Advanced Professional Video) codec. Qualcomm claims it lets users capture nearly lossless video, which should finally help Android smartphones to compete with AV1 on iPhones. APV consumes 20% less storage by offering smaller file sizes.

The Snapdragon X85 modem remains unchanged from the last generation Snapdragon 8 Elite, offering 12.5Gbps downlink and 3.7Gbps uplink speeds. These are up from 10 Gbps down and 3Gbps up speeds of Snapdragon 8 Elite. The same goes for other connectivity features like Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 and UWB, which are a part of the FastConnect 7900 chip.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 key specifications

With Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 finally out, that leaves us with the Exynos 2600, which is rumoured to launch in 2026. Until then, the Dimensity 9500 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 are expected to carry 2025's and 2026's flagships forward.

The first set of devices to be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 could be the Xiaomi 17 series, followed by the Realme GT 8 series and OnePlus 15, all of which are launching before the end of 2025. These phones will rival the likes of the Vivo X300 and Oppo Find X9, which are confirmed to feature MediaTek's latest flagship processor – Dimensity 9500.

At the end of the keynote, Qualcomm also confirmed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. It said the chipset was developed to give users more choices and flexibility while still delivering flagship features. While the keynote didn't delve deep into this SoC's specifications, Qualcomm did say that it will be available "later this year", so can expect more details to arrive before the end of 2025.