Qualcomm Officially Introduces Snapdragon 8 Gen 5: Non-Elite Version That Remains Powered

JAKARTA - Qualcomm has finally officially announced the arrival of the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, the latest high-end chipset that comes as a more affordable version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Although not the highest variant, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 still brings significant performance improvements over the previous generation, as well as an attractive option for smartphone manufacturers who want to present flagship devices at a more competitive price.

This chipset presents a striking performance jump when compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 which was released in 2023. Qualcomm claims Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 offers a 36 percent increase in CPUs and an 11 percent increase in GPU performance. In addition, power efficiency also increased by about 13 percent, allowing the device to run cooler and battery-efficient.

Although still using the Oryon architecture such as the Elite variant, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 comes with a lower clock speed. This chipset is equipped with two prime cores running at 3.8 GHz, while in the Elite version the two main cores have a speed of 3.62 GHz and 4.6 GHz. The six performance cores are limited to 3.32 GHz. This reduction makes the total performance below the Elite version, but remains very competitive for the flagship class.

This chipset uses the Snapdragon X80 modem, which is slightly slower than the modem on the Elite model. Even so, modern connectivity support remains available, including Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and UWB. But there is one shortfall that may be felt for some users: Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 does not support faster UFS 4.1 storage.

GPU Adreno 840 was also brought to this chipset, complete with Frame Motion Engine 3.0 technology, even without the support of Adreno High-Performance Memory (HPM) which is only available in the Elite model. The NPU Hexagon AI processing unit in it is also one level below the highest version.

However, most of the other features in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 are still passed on to this non-Elite model, making it a very powerful and attractive chipset for smartphone manufacturers.

OnePlus is expected to be the first company to adopt it through OnePlus Ace 6T or OnePlus 15R. Motorola and Vivo are also said to be launching a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 powered device in the near future.

Qualcomm ensures that the first smartphone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 will be present in the next few weeks. With significant performance improvements but maintaining efficiency, this chipset has the potential to be the main driver for a new wave of flagship smartphones that are more affordable.