Qualcomm has officially unveiled its next generation of flagship mobile chipsets, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, both built on an advanced 2nm manufacturing process. The two platforms are powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit Oryon CPU architecture and are paired with new Adreno GPUs and Hexagon NPUs to handle graphics rendering and AI workloads respectively. Both chipsets share a similar core layout, featuring two Prime cores clocked up to 5.0GHz alongside six Performance cores reaching up to 4.0GHz, backed by 16MB of Oryon FlexCache. They also support up to 24GB of LPDDR5X/6 RAM at speeds of up to 5,300MHz, along with UFS 5.0 storage.
On the performance front, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 brings substantial gains over its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Qualcomm states the new chip delivers a 13% boost in CPU performance along with 37% better CPU power efficiency. GPU performance sees an even larger jump at 44%, while NPU performance climbs by 35%, and overall AI performance per watt improves by 33%. The Extreme variant also gets a notable memory upgrade, with its Hexagon NPU now carrying 50% more shared memory than the previous generation. The standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, meanwhile, posts its own set of improvements, offering a 10% CPU performance gain and the same 37% improvement in CPU power efficiency, with GPU performance up by 35%, NPU performance improved by 14%, and AI performance per watt rising by 20%.
Video recording capabilities have also received a significant upgrade across both platforms. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 can now record 8K video at 60fps and supports 4K slow-motion capture at 240fps, while the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 supports 8K recording at 30fps and 4K slow motion at 120fps. These improvements are expected to give upcoming flagship smartphones considerably more flexibility for advanced video and content creation features.
Several major smartphone brands have already confirmed plans to use the new chipsets. Xiaomi will be the first to bring the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 to market, with the Xiaomi 18 Pro lineup set to launch later today. OnePlus has also confirmed that its upcoming OnePlus 16 will run on the Extreme variant, while Motorola has announced that its Signature 27 will be powered by the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. With these commitments already in place, Qualcomm’s latest chips are set to power a new wave of flagship Android devices in the coming months, shaping the performance and efficiency benchmarks for premium smartphones going forward.
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