C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Qualcomm is said to be working on a new sub-flagship SoC called the Snapdragon 8s Elite.
- The chip is expected to offer flagship-level performance at a lower price point, with the 8s Elite slotting lower than the 8 Gen 3 flagship SoC from last year.
- iQOO and Redmi are rumored to be among the first to launch phones with the Snapdragon 8s Elite.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite powers and will continue to power most of the top Android flagships released this year. While this is the best SoC Qualcomm offers, it is expensive. For users who aren’t constantly looking to push their smartphones, all of this processing power remains underutilized, so there is room for a sub-flagship offering. That’s where the upcoming Snapdragon 8s Elite could come, and specifications of this sub-flagship SoC have now leaked.
Leaker Digital Chat Station has shared the potential specifications of the SM8735 Snapdragon 8s Elite. According to the leaker, the Snapdragon 8s Elite could come with one prime Cortex-X4 core clocked at 3.21GHz, three performance Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 3.01GHz, two efficiency Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 2.80GHz, and two more efficiency cores clocked at 2.02GHz (probably Cortex-A520 or a newer refresh).
The Snapdragon 8s Elite’s Geekbench 6 scores in its current testing configuration are said to be 1,967 for single-core performance and 5,827 for multi-core performance.
For reference, the leaker points to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3‘s Geekbench 6 scores of 2,200/7,000, indicating that the Snapdragon 8s Elite could slot in lower than the outgoing 8 Gen 3. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has a similar core configuration as mentioned for the 8s Elite in this leak but higher clock speeds across the board (3.3GHz, 3.2GHz, 3GHz, and 2.3GHz, respectively, for its various clusters). So, the lower benchmark score for the 8s Elite makes some sense.
The leaker further mentions that the Snapdragon 8s Elite is very much in its testing phase. For a better picture of its actual performance, we’ll have to wait for phones to be released, with iQOO and Redmi said to be part of the first wave of releases with this sub-flagship SoC.
Qualcomm uses the ‘s’ suffix for lower performance variants, going against the conventional naming scheme in the smartphone industry where the ‘s’ suffix usually stands for a refresh or successor. Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 in March 2024, so we expect to see the company unveil the Snapdragon 8s Elite in March 2025.
Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at news@androidauthority.com. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it’s your choice.
