Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 as its flagship-killer chip

Qualcomm has a new 8-series chipset, but it sits a tier below the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 flagship SoC. The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is meant to carry the flagship-level experience of the Elite model, but for devices with a lower starting price.

Like the 8 Elite Gen 5, the 8 Gen 5 is fabbed on a 3nm process and features Qualcomm’s third-gen Oryon CPU with its 2x prime cores clocked at 3.8 GHz and its 6x performance cores running at 3.32GHz.

In terms of performance, Qualcomm is actually comparing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 with the two-year-old Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip promising a 36% improvement in CPU tasks, 11% better GPU output alongside 46% improvement in AI tasks, and 13% overall SoC power savings.

The SD 8 Gen 5 gets the same sliced Adreno 840 GPU with the Frame Motion Engine 3.0, like on the 8 Gen Elite 5, but without Adreno High-Performance Memory (HPM).

The new chip also gets Qualcomm’s Hexagon NPU, offering 46% improvement in AI tasks compared to the SD 8 Gen 3 with support for on-device AI and multi-modal input. Elsewhere, the 8 Gen 5 brings Qualcomm’s Spectra ISP and the X80 5G Modem-RF System – the same modem used on last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite.

OnePlus will be the first to bring the SD 8 Gen 5 to the market with the OnePlus Ace 6T/15R. Other OEMs like iQOO, Motorola, and vivo are also expected to announce phones with the new chip soon.