Qualcomm has just announced its next flagship mobile chipset, Snapdragon 8 Elite, and it’s already making headlines for good reasons. The chipmaker has made several big claims for this chip, making us impatient to get our hands on a Snapdragon 8 Elite phone.
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During the chip launch, many brands announced their upcoming phones featuring this new chip. So, we’ve compiled the list along with the release date based on leaks and rumors.
Upcoming phones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip
- Xiaomi 15 series — October 2024 (expected)
- Samsung Galaxy S25 series — January 2025 (expected)
- Realme GT 7 Pro — November 2024 (expected)
- Honor Magic7 series — October 30, 2024
- Asus ROG Phone 9 series — November 19, 2024
- iQOO 13 — October 30
- OnePlus 13 — October 31
These are the first phones to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. However, like the previous year, Xiaomi will be the first to launch a phone with the new chip, and it’s nothing but the Xiaomi 15 series.
The Xiaomi 15 series should be released this week before the Magic 7 series, whose launch is scheduled for October 30.
Snapdragon 8 Elite: What makes it so special?
Snapdragon 8 Elite is not just Qualcomm’s new naming scheme but a significant leap that could reshape the company’s future. For this chip, Qualcomm has abandoned ARM’s chip design and brought in its own, and it’s going to be this way, at least for the flagship chips going forward. This fundamental change is big, which could be why Qualcomm decided to give it a different name.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite features an Oryon CPU with a custom eight-core structure consisting of two prime cores clocked at 4.32GHz and six performance cores running at up to 3.53GHz. The chip is fabricated on TSMC’s 3nm process and promises a 45% CPU performance boost and 44% improved power efficiency compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
The latest Qualcomm chip has a revamped Adreno GPU, which offers a 40% performance uplift, 40% better power saving, and 35% improved ray-tracing performance. On the AI side, the Snapdragon 8 Elite brings a new NPU that promises 45% faster performance.
