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What you need to know
- Qualcomm has introduced the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which will power 2026 flagship smartphones.
- The 3nm chip features two prime cores clocked at 4.6GHz and six performance cores that reach up to 3.62GHz.
- The improved NPU promises advanced on-device agentic AI with less reliance on the cloud.
- The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 enables video recording with the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec.
Qualcomm has introduced the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, built using Oryon cores. The chip is designed for high-performance flagship Android phones, with agentic AI and more powerful creator-focused capabilities in mind.
The new 3nm chip delivers a significant 20% boost to CPU performance, featuring two prime cores clocked at 4.6GHz and six performance cores optimized for lower-power tasks. By comparison, the last-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite features prime cores clocked at 4.32 GHz, while the Galaxy version of the chip can reach up to 4.47 GHz.
This is further enhanced by a faster Adreno GPU, which Qualcomm claims can deliver a 23% performance boost while consuming 20% less power, allowing you to get more out of your gaming experience while worrying less about your battery.
Perhaps the most significant focus for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which helps enable more advanced AI capabilities. Thanks to a 37% faster NPU, Qualcomm hopes to enable more on-device agentic AI features. This means your phone should be able to predict your behaviour and make recommendations based on context.
Think what Google is trying to do with Tensor on the Pixel 10 and features like Magic Cue, which surface useful, context-driven prompts throughout your apps. We could see this in more phones going forward.
"Through continuous on-device learning and real-time sensing, multimodal AI models understand the user, enabling proactive recommendations and situation-based prompt enhancements—with user data staying on device."
Qualcomm says built-in agentic capabilities will also allow AI assistants to act on your behalf based on your behaviour, preferences, and more, not unlike what we're seeing with Chrome. This is something Motorola also teased with its Large Action Model, so Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 should be able to make this happen. The best part is that this can happen with on-device AI processing, meaning less stress on your battery, and your information stays safe.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 offers native support for the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, enabling devices to record near-lossless video quality for more flexible editing. Devices can also take advantage of improved video capture, thanks to a computational video pipeline for context-aware adjustments to footage, as well as professional-level audio capture with Snapdragon Audio Sense.
Other supported specs include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, UFS 4.1, and Quick Charge 5.
Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will be featured in devices from Honor, iQOO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, POCO, Realme, REDMI, RedMagic, ROG, Samsung, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. We can expect the first phones to launch very soon.
