The Snapdragon 8 Elite is here.
Qualcomm’s new flagship mobile chipset has a new name, but the intentions remain the same: to set the standard in phone chips for the next 12 months.
As usual, performance is improved, with internal testing suggesting a significant jump over last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
But the 8 Elite isn’t all about performance. It includes many exciting upgrades that could change the way you use your phone. Here are five key changes I can’t wait to try.
Battery life without efficient cores
The big news on the CPU side is that the 8 Elite does not have efficiency cores. There were two on last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but they were replaced by performance cores on its successor.
In addition to the improved dual Oryon cores, the eight cores are now primarily focused on performance. What impact will this have on energy efficiency?
According to Qualcomm, it will get even better. This means you can expect battery life to be at least maintained compared to the 8 Gen 3 (compensating for the increased power demand), if not improved.
But can battery life really be that long when all the CPU cores are focused on performance? I can’t wait to try this for myself.
An ultra realistic game
Gaming is at the heart of Qualcomm’s concerns on the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Its upgraded Adreno GPU features a new sliced architecture, which the company says results in 40% faster performance, 40% power savings, and 35% improved ray tracing performance.
It’s also the first mobile chipset to support Unreal Engine 5.3 with Nanite, which promises “cinema-quality 3D environments for total immersion.”
Then there’s the Unreal Chaos Physics engine, which aims to make complex in-game interactions, such as an avalanche or waterfall, much more realistic.
Will this finally deliver mobile gaming graphics comparable to console and PC? I can’t wait to find out.
Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Multimodal generative AI
Generative AI is a solution adopted by almost every technology company, and Qualcomm is no different.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite includes a dedicated Hexagon GPU, which adds additional scalers and vectors compared to the 8 Gen 3 version.
But the upgrade I’m most excited about is multimodal generative AI. Current iterations generally rely on text, photo, and image output, which limits their use. The 8 Elite adds support for audio and video, as well as the ability to recognize things you point your camera at.
This is a potentially important upgrade that could make generative AI much more useful.
Video Object Eraser
You’re probably familiar with AI-powered photo erasers. They allow you to select an element in a photo, then use generative AI to remove it and realistically regenerate the new background.
But what about video? A moving image makes this process much more difficult, but the Snapdragon 8 Elite is supposed to remove objects just as seamlessly.
I’m intrigued to see how this will work in reality. Can Qualcomm really identify an object in a video and make the generated background convincing? It will be interesting to discover.
Real-time restart
One of my biggest problems with video calls is poor lighting. This is a particular problem at home, where the best place to answer a call often doesn’t have good lighting conditions.
A Snapdragon 8 Elite device might be my solution in the future. As the name suggests, real-time relighting can improve lighting conditions while you’re on a call.
It adds an additional virtual light source that can be customized to your liking, either manually or using AI to optimize for your environment.
Could this be the answer to my video calling problems? I really hope so.
Of course, just because the Snapdragon 8 Elite supports these features doesn’t mean they’ll be available on every phone that uses it. But if they’re as good as they seem, they offer a compelling vision of the future of smartphones.
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