At Snapdragon Summit 2024, Qualcomm has launched its latest flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset aka Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, if we go by the prior naming convention. This time, Qualcomm has packed Nuvia-designed 2nd-gen Oryon CPU cores on the Snapdragon 8 Elite. We saw the 1st-gen Oryon CPU on the Snapdragon X Elite, the company’s ARM-based PC processor.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is manufactured on TSMC’s 3nm (N3E) process node, featuring eight 2nd-gen Oryon CPU cores. Two Oryon cores are clocked up to a mighty 4.32GHz, outranking even the Apple A18 Pro, and six cores can reach up to 3.53GHz.
Qualcomm says the Oryon cores on the new 8 Elite chipset deliver blistering CPU performance, offering a massive gain of 45% over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in single and multi-core performance.
As for the next generation Adreno 830 GPU, it brings a massive 40% uplift in graphics performance and a 35% improvement in ray tracing gaming performance. The 8-series Adreno GPU indeed looks very powerful. Qualcomm has done something different this time with its Adreno GPU. It has implemented GMEM (generalized memory management), bringing onboard local memory to the GPU for faster rendering.
On top of that, the Adreno 830 GPU is built on a new Sliced architecture that brings three GPU slices. The slices are clocked up to 1.1GHz. And the GPU supports all major graphics APIs, including Unreal Engine, Nanite, and Chaos Engine.
Moreover, the new Hexagon NPU on the Snapdragon 8 Elite brings 45% faster AI performance over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It packs a 6-core vector accelerator and an 8-core scalar accelerator. The Hexagon NPU can access dual-channel LPDDR5X memory (up to 5.3GHz).
On the connectivity front, the Snapdragon 8 Elite features the Snapdragon X80 5G modem and supports Wi-Fi 7 with some AI enhancements. The ISP is now more capable than before, offering 33% faster performance. It can capture 4.3 Gigapixels per second (GP/s) and taps the Hexagon AI engine for real-time image and video enhancements. The ISP can do real-time segmentation, AI relighting, erase objects from videos, and more.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Specifications
| Snapdragon 8 Elite | |
|---|---|
| Process Node | TSMC’s 2nd-gen 3nm (N3E) |
| CPU | Octa-core 2nd-gen Oryon CPU 2x 2nd-gen Oryon (4.32GHz) 6x 2nd-gen Oryon (3.53GHz) |
| GPU | Adreno 830 GPU HW-accelerated Ray Tracing |
| NPU | New Hexagon NPU On-device multimodal AI support |
| ISP | 4.3 Gigapixels per second Hexagon AI integration Erase objects from videos |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 |
| Modem | Snapdragon X80 5G modem Peak Download Speed: 10 Gbps Peak Upload Speed: 3.5 Gbps |
| Storage / RAM Support | UFS 4.0 LPDDR5X (up to 5.3GHz) |
Overall, Qualcomm claims Snapdragon 8 Elite aka 8 Gen 4 is 27% more power-efficient than the previous generation. We’ll need to test out the 8 Elite chipset for a detailed verdict, but what do you think about Qualcomm’s flagship chip? Can it beat the Apple A18 Pro and Dimensity 9400? Let us know in the comments below.
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