Snapdragon 8 Elite: Key features of Qualcomm's latest mobile AI processor

Snapdragon 8 Elite is touted as the world's fastest chipset tailor-made to run generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI)-related tasks smoothly on the device without any lag time.

American semiconductor major Qualcomm announced the much-awaited Snapdragon 8 Elite, the company's most powerful chipset for smartphones at the Snapdragon Summit 2024 event in Hawaii.

The latest Snapdragon 8 Elite is a big upgrade over its predecessor and is also being touted as the 'world's fastest chipset' tailor-made to run generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI)-related tasks smoothly on the device without any lag-ness.

Snapdragon 8 Elite: Key features you should know about the latest Qualcomm chipset

• The new Snapdragon 8 Elite is a 3nm class 64-bit octa-core 2nd Gen Oryon silicon with a 24MB CPU Cache. It can clock peak CPU speed up to 4.32GHz. It promises 45 per cent improvement in terms of single-core and multi-core CPU performance, 63 per cent enhanced web browsing experience and 44 per cent improved power efficiency in both CPU and GPU

• With the latest Adreno GPU, it promises to deliver up to 40 per cent improved performance and 40 per cent better power efficiency

Adreno GPU’s sliced architecture can deliver immersive graphics and realistic environments while helping maximise performance and battery power

• Snapdragon 8 Elite AI Engine boasts of Qualcomm Hexagon NPU. It promises 45 per cent improved performance and 45 per cent better performance per watt in terms of power consumption. With Qualcomm Sensing Hub, the device's multimodal Gen AI assistant will be able to offer suggestions and decisions that suit the owner best.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

• With the Snapdragon X80 5G Modem-RF System, smartphones will be able to support up to 10 Gbps download speed and 3.5Gbps upload speed. It comes integrated with Qualcomm 5G AI Processor Gen 2 with dedicated tensor hardware accelerator Qualcomm 5G AI Suite Gen 3

• Smartphones with Snapdragon 8 Elite will support Wi-Fi 7. Thanks to Qualcomm FastConnect 7900, users can experience super-fast 5.8Gbps wireless internet connectivity speed.

• With Bluetooth 5.4 support, smartphones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will be able to have a stable wireless connection with a companion device for up to 800 feet (around 240 metres) and up to 200Mbps data transfer speed

• With the latest Snapdragon Elite Gaming feature, it allows smartphones to support Unreal Engine 5.3 with Nanite producing film-quality 3D environments for total immersive viewing on the phone. Qualcomm Adaptive Performance Engine 4.0 promises to improve device power efficiency by optimizing game-thread scheduling strategy on snapdragon platforms

It will enable phones to support real-time Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing, which delivers improved lighting and shadows – now with 35 per cent better Ray Tracing 

With Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2.0, the game's content will appear in higher quality and lower latency (1 m/s) upscaling to deliver the ultimate gaming experience

Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0 doubles the frame rate of games, with little impact on power, so gamers can enjoy the benefits of high frame rates without worrying about the phone's battery life.

• Snapdragon 8 Elite comes with Qualcomm Spectra, a Cognitive AI ISP for the phone's camera. It supports limitless Real-time Semantic Segmentation for photo/video frames. Insight AI features can deliver real-time skin and sky adjustments to create more natural colour and lighting in uncertain conditions. It will enable the phone's camera to support ultra-low Light video capture, Video Object Eraser feature, real-time AI relighting capability, and Truepic photo capture with C2PA standard support.

World's top Android phone makers including Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Vivo, Honor, iQOO, Oppo, Realme, Asus, and more, are all slated to launch devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, in the coming weeks.

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