Snapdragon 8 Elite launched with 3nm Oryon CPU, AI boost and more

Qualcomm launched the next-gen mobile platform – Snapdragon 8 Elite. The new processor is set to compete against Apple’s A18 Pro used in the iPhone 16 Pro lineup. It is fabricated using TSMC’s cutting-edge 3nm process node.

Snapdragon 8 Elite will power Samsung’s Galaxy S25 series. The Exynos 2500 could not be materialized due to lower yield at Samsung Foundry. However, we could see it in next year’s Fan Edition or Flip 7 device.

Qualcomm expanded its Oryon CPU to its mobile platform apart from the “Elite” name. The inclusion of the company’s in-house Oryon central processing unit enables faster performance and on-device support for multimodal intelligence.

Oryon in 8 Elite doesn’t come from Qualcomm’s laptop chipset. The company has tweaked the technology and called it a second-generation Oryon CPU. The architecture comprises two prime cores with six performance cores.

There’s an X80 5G modem-RF chip and an Adreno GPU with a new sliced architecture, with dedicated memory allocated to each slice. This significant shift results in a massive performance boost compared to previous generations.

I asked Chris Patrick, Qualcomm’s mobile handset SVP, what all of that upgraded hardware would translate to in the hands of smartphone users, and the examples he gave boiled down to more desktop-like performance from a phone.

Qualcomm’s mobile handset SVP noted that websites that aren’t well optimized for mobile will “run very quickly and feel light.” Besides, heavy games will run more effortlessly, making it a game changer in the smartphone industry.

As the utilization of artificial intelligence is rising, Qualcomm brought upgraded NPU to Snapdragon 8 Elite. The upgraded Hexagon NPU supports on-device multimodal AI assistants that can handle text input as well as visuals.

Additionally, the chipset supports an on-device AI-powered video object eraser tool, letting you remove distractions from video clips. I’m excited to see if Samsung becomes the first OEM to materialize this feature on the Galaxy S25 series.

The first 8 Elite devices from brands like Asus, Honor, OnePlus, Oppo, and Xiaomi are expected to launch “in the coming weeks.” Samsung, on the other hand, will launch its 8 Elite-powered Galaxy flagships early next year.