It’s tempting to focus on performance when talking about new chipsets like the Snapdragon 8 Elite, when there are so many other aspects of the mobile experience that the system-on-chip controls. In the case of Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon, this includes everything from the photos you can take with Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered devices, to the AI experiences enabled by the chipset, to how long those phones last on a single charge. Masu.
Still, performance is still a big part of the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s story, and Qualcomm is happy to talk about it. The new chipset uses a version of the Oryon CPU, originally released for connected computers but customized for mobile, and offers performance numbers that compare specifically to iPhone 16 Pro models and the A18 Pro chipset they run. The results are quite impressive if you want to compare. Above.
When it announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite earlier this week, Qualcomm released some of its own benchmarks for the new chip and promised it would deliver performance commensurate with the latest iPhones. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s Oryon CPU delivers a 45% improvement in both single-core and multi-core performance in the Geekbench 6 benchmark compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It is by no means inferior in terms of performance. The new chipset’s Adreno GPU is expected to deliver a 40% performance boost.
At this week’s Snapdragon Summit, where I’m attending as a guest of the company, Qualcomm provided a benchmarking session where I was able to validate these numbers using a Qualcomm-provided reference device running the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The 6.8-inch reference device runs a standard configuration of Snapdragon 8 Elite with up to 4.32 GHz CPU. The device also comes with 24GB of RAM.
Here are the results we found when running some common benchmarks on Snapdragon 8 Elite powered devices:
Snapdragon 8 Elite Performance Test
When Tom’s Guide tests a phone’s overall performance, we look at Geekbench, which measures the processor’s single-core and multi-core capabilities when performing various tasks. For the past few years, Apple’s A-series chips have dominated this test, but recent Snapdragon silicon has closed the gap, especially in multi-core performance.
| device | Geekbench 6 (single/multi-core) | Speedometer 3 (chrome) |
| Snapdragon 8 Elite Reference Device | 3,212 / 10,318 | 33.2 |
| Galaxy S24 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) | 2,300 / 7,249 | 16.3 |
| iPhone16 Pro (A18 Pro) | 3,400 / 8,391 | 28.1 |
| iPhone 16 Pro Max (A18 Pro) | 3,386 / 8306 | 27.8 |
Snapdragon 8 Elite accelerates that improvement. Our reference device had an average single-core score of 3,212 and multi-core score of 10,318. This multi-core result is especially clear since we have yet to see a mobile device that exceeds the 10,000 mark.
As you might expect, these numbers for the Snapdragon 8 Elite are a significant improvement over the numbers shown by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the same test. The Snapdragon 8 Elite results outperformed the Galaxy S24 Ultra with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 by 40% in single-core tests and 42% in multi-core tests.
In single-core results on Geekbench, the Snapdragon 8 Elite still lags behind Apple’s A18 Pro chip. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max outperformed Qualcomm’s reference devices with scores of 3,400 and 3,386, respectively. However, in the multi-core test, the iPhone 16 Pro achieved a result of 8,391, while the Pro Max reached 8,306. Both scores are significantly lower than that of the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
I also ran Speedometer 3 on a Snapdragon 8 Elite. This test lets you see how fast your browsing performance will be with a specific chipset. I ran Speedometer using Chrome to get consistent results.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered unit averaged 33.2 in Speedometer 3, compared to 16.3 for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The iPhone 16 Pro’s score was a little closer, with the standard Pro’s score being 28.1, while the Pro Max’s score was 27.8.
Testing Snapdragon 8 Elite graphics
We use 3DMark’s Wild Life test to examine graphics performance, as it’s a good way to compare devices running iOS and Android. This test looks for phones that produce higher frame rates. We measured the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s GPU by running both the Unlimited version of the Wild Life graphics benchmark and the more demanding Extreme test.
In recent years, Snapdragon-powered phones have edged out the iPhone in this test. That certainly held true when I ran Wild Life on my Snapdragon 8 Elite test unit.
| device | Wild Life Unlimited (fps) | Wild Life Unlimited Extreme (fps) |
| Snapdragon 8 Elite Reference Device | 150.9 | 41.7 |
| Galaxy S24 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) | 121.8 | 29.8 |
| iPhone16 Pro (A18 Pro) | 109.3 | twenty three |
| iPhone 16 Pro Max (A18 Pro) | 107.5 | 22.9 |
In Wild Life Unlimited, the Snapdragon 8 Elite device produced an average of 150.9 frames per second when running the on-screen test. (There are off-screen options that can produce higher frame rates, but we’re using the on-screen numbers for a consistent comparison with phones we’ve tested internally.) That 150.9 fps result compares favorably with the Galaxy S24 Ultra 24% higher.
More importantly, the gap with the iPhone’s performance in this test is widening. The iPhone 16 Pro recorded a result of 109.3 fps, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max recorded a score of 107.5. These numbers were already below the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so if Snapdragon 8 Elite is installed in the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung’s new phone could far outperform the current iPhone in terms of graphics. I understand.
When running the Wild Life Unlimited Extreme test, the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s 41.7 fps was 39% faster than the Galaxy S24 Ultra and 81% faster than the iPhone 16 Pro.
Snapdragon 8 Elite AI test
AI features are now mainstream in smartphones, and much of it relies on the performance of the chipset’s neural engine, especially if you want to run AI features on the device itself. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s Neural Engine is 45% faster than the previous generation.
We looked at the AIMark benchmark to see what kind of improvement it would lead to. This benchmark relies on ResNet-34, Inception-V3, Mobilenet-SSD, and DeepLab-v3+ models for image classification, recognition, and segmentation. The higher the score, the better.
Qualcomm is correct in pointing out that the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s Neural Engine is faster than what last year’s chipset had to offer. In AIMark, the 8 Elite’s score of 308,241 is 26% higher than the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s score of 243,765. The cross-platform comparison here isn’t the most specific, as the iPhone typically scores quite poorly on AiMark. There are also many other AI benchmarks that can provide a more complete picture of neural performance. However, this AiMark test shows a generational jump between Snapdragon 8 Elite and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Snapdragon 8 Elite: What we didn’t test
When I review a phone, I like to run a real test by taking a video clip and transcoding it to 1080p using Adobe Premiere Rush. Time your results and have better performing phones complete tasks faster than your rivals. However, due to time and device limitations, we did not have the opportunity to run this transcoding test on a reference device with Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Traditionally, this has been a test that has shown Apple’s A-series chips die much earlier than Snapdragon-powered devices. Most recently, the iPhone 16 Pro Max completed the task in 21 seconds, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra took 42 seconds. Obviously, we’ll be very interested to see if the Snapdragon 8 Elite can shrink that time when we get a chance to fully test the first phones powered by Qualcomm’s latest silicon.
Snapdragon 8 Elite outlook
When we spoke to Qualcomm’s Chris Patrick about the Snapdragon 8 Elite, he described the new silicon as a “desktop-class CPU.” [with] Mobile level power efficiency. ” After running our first benchmarks on the Snapdragon 8 Elite, we can confirm that his point about the CPU’s power is indeed correct.
More benchmarks need to be run on devices released with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but for now Qualcomm appears to be on track to grab the mobile performance crown in early 2025. We will respond within the year.
