Qualcomm has taken the wraps off its latest mobile platform, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, during its annual Snapdragon Summit in Maui, Hawaii. The new chip is positioned as a significant leap over last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, which powered devices like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13 (review). With significant gains in CPU, GPU, and AI performance, the Gen 5 is set to power Android phones from over a dozen brands, including Xiaomi, iQOO, OnePlus, Honor, ROG, Nubia, Oppo, Realme, Poco, Redmi, RedMagic, Samsung, Sony, Vivo, and ZTE.
What’s changed
At the heart of the chip is Qualcomm’s third-generation Oryon CPU, featuring a prime core clocked at up to 4.6GHz. Qualcomm claims a 20% performance boost and up to 35% better efficiency. Early Geekbench results from devices like the standard Xiaomi 17 back this up, showing scores of 3,705 in single-core and 11,228 in multi-core tests—comparable to Apple’s A19 Pro in single-core and slightly ahead in multi-core.
The Adreno GPU sees a 23% jump in graphics performance, with higher clock speeds aimed at smooth ray-traced gaming. AI capabilities also receive a major bump, with the Hexagon NPU promising 37% more throughput for on-device AI tasks, including generative editing. Camera performance should benefit too, with improvements in Qualcomm’s Spectra ISP.
Connectivity is handled by the new X85 5G modem, offering both sub-6GHz and mmWave support. Creators will also appreciate Qualcomm’s push into video, as the Gen 5 becomes the first mobile platform to support the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, enabling near-lossless 8K capture.
More than a dozen manufacturers are lined up to use the chip, including Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Vivo, iQOO, Oppo, Realme, and Asus ROG. Xiaomi’s 17 series will be the first to ship with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, followed soon by models like the iQOO 15 and OnePlus 15.
With this launch, Qualcomm is making a clear play to match or even surpass Apple’s latest silicon—not just in benchmarks, but in sustained real-world performance.
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