Qualcomm has officially announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipsets at the Snapdragon Summit 2026. These are the company's first 2 nm processors and also the first time Qualcomm has split its annual flagship platform into two separate chipsets.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Specifications
The biggest change this year is the new 2 nm manufacturing process, which is a step up from the 3 nm process used for last year's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor. A smaller process means the chipset can pack more transistors, hence more performance while using less battery.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 uses eight Oryon v4 cores split into two groups: a 2+6 cluster. This includes 2x Prime cores clocked at up to 5.0 GHz for demanding tasks and 6x Performance cores clocked at up to 4.0 GHz. This is the same approach MediaTek uses with the Dimensity 9600 Pro chipset that was launched recently.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 gets the Adreno 845 GPU. It has 12 MB of graphics memory, which is a step down from the Adreno 850 with 18 MB of graphics memory on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset.
It also skips Adreno Neural Fusion, Qualcomm's new AI feature for super-resolution upscaling and frame generation in games, as the AI matrix cores that power it are exclusive to the Extreme processor. That said, the standard Gen 6 still supports the Snapdragon Elite Gaming suite, just without that particular upgrade.
For memory, it supports LPDDR5X RAM, while LPDDR6 is limited to the Extreme processor. Both variants support the faster UFS 4.1 storage standard.
On the AI side, Qualcomm has reengineered the NPU with a new Hexagon Element Accelerator. However, support for Mixture of Experts (MoE) models with over 30 billion parameters and the 50% larger shared memory are exclusive to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
The Spectra ISP gets an update with Intelligent Pixel Control, an Elite Colour Engine with 3D LUT support for more accurate colour grading, and Intelligent Stabilisation. That said, the standard chipset misses out on some video features. VVC codec support, APV support, 8K 60fps recording and 4K 240fps slow-motion video are limited to the Extreme model.
Connectivity is handled by the new Snapdragon X105 5G modem, which Qualcomm says lays the groundwork for 6G technology down the line, paired with FastConnect 8800 for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with AI-enhanced signal management.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 will power most Android flagships coming in late 2026 and early 2027, starting with the Xiaomi 18 Pro, the first phone to debut with the new chipset. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 for Ultra-tier phones was also announced at the Summit and will be covered separately.
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