Qualcomm has split its newest flagship smartphone platform into two chips: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and the higher-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. The company announced both platforms at Snapdragon Summit on September 22.
Both systems-on-chip use a 2nm manufacturing process and combine Qualcomm's custom Oryon CPU, Adreno graphics and Hexagon neural-processing unit. Each has two Prime CPU cores that can reach 5GHz, according to Qualcomm's specifications. That clock speed is a peak platform capability; the sustained performance and power use readers see will depend on how each phone maker cools and configures the chip.
Extreme gets the larger graphics and AI gains
For the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, Qualcomm claims a 10% CPU performance improvement, 35% faster GPU performance and a 14% NPU gain over Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. It also claims 37% better CPU power efficiency and 40% better GPU power efficiency.
The Extreme model raises the company's claimed gains to 13% for the CPU, 44% for the GPU and 35% for the NPU. Extreme also adds Adreno Neural Fusion, which uses dedicated matrix cores for AI-assisted graphics features such as super resolution, frame generation and image reconstruction.
These are Qualcomm's comparisons with the previous generation, not independent handset benchmarks. The company says results will vary with each manufacturer's implementation.
The shared platform reaches beyond CPU speed
Both chips use Qualcomm's X105 5G modem, with claimed peak downloads of 14.8Gbps, and FastConnect 8800 for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ultra-wideband and Thread. Qualcomm is also pitching on-device agent features that use the CPU, GPU, NPU and low-power Sensing Hub to learn preferences and coordinate tasks across apps. Availability of some features depends on the Android version and the software shipped by the phone maker.
Qualcomm says phones using the new platforms will come from Honor, iQOO, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Redmi, RedMagic, Vivo and Xiaomi. The announcement does not give a single retail date because each manufacturer controls its own device launch.
