Last year Qualcomm revamped it naming conventions for flagship processors. Instead of launching a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip the company introduced a Snapdragon 8 Elite as the first mobile processor to feature Oryon CPU cores using some of the same technologies Qualcomm uses for its laptop chips.
But that change was short-lived, because in September the company announced that it’s next chip for flagship phones and tablets would be called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Now the company is providing more details for its next-gen mobile flagship and it seems like the new/old name might serve another purpose: instead of telling us how much better the new processor is than last year’s model, Qualcomm says it brings boosts in CPU, GPU, and AI performance when “compared to the previous generation, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.”
Technically that is a previous-generation chip, but it’s two generations old, not one.
Anyway, here’s are the improvements Qualcomm says it was able to make over two generations:
- CPU: Up to 36% faster CPU performance and 42% efficiency improvement
- GPU: Up to 11% faster graphics performance and 28% efficiency improvement
- NPU: Up to 46% improvement in AI performance
The chip maker says that the new chip delivers overall power savings of 13 percent, while delivering performance boosts for most tasks, as well as support for features including “agentic AI assistants,” if that’s something you’re looking for.
Other features include support for LPDDR5x-4800 memory and UFS 4.1 storage, a SnapdragonX80 5G modem with peak download speeds up to 10 Gbps and peak upload speeds up to 3.5 Gbps, and a Qualcomm FastConnect 7900 system with support for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
The Qualcomm Spectra triple 20-bit ISP supports up to three 48MP cameras or a single 320MP camera and 4K/120fps video capture. And the system supports QHD+ displays with refresh rates as high as 240 Hz.
You can find more details in Qualcomm’s spec sheet for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5.
