Qualcomm has officially launched the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, a non-Elite version of its high-end 8 Gen 5 chipset. Designed for a more affordable tier of flagship smartphones, the new chip delivers slightly lower performance while maintaining the same core feature set as the Elite variant.
Compared to the 2023 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm claims the 8 Gen 5 offers a 36 percent improvement in CPU performance and an 11 percent improvement in GPU performance, along with better efficiency. However, direct comparisons with the 8 Gen 3 are limited by differences in CPU architecture. Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the regular Gen 5 runs at slower clock speeds, with six performance cores capped at 3.32GHz and two prime cores at 3.8GHz, compared to 3.62GHz and 4.6GHz in the Elite.
Some other reductions include slightly slower peak 5G speeds on the X80 modem and modestly downgraded Adreno GPU and Hexagon AI NPU specifications. The regular Gen 5 also does not support UFS 4.1 storage. Despite these differences, most features remain identical, including display support, charging capabilities, camera hardware options, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and support for satellite and ultra wideband (UWB) connectivity.
Several manufacturers, including Motorola, OnePlus, and Vivo, have confirmed plans to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 in upcoming smartphones. The first devices featuring the chip are expected to launch in the coming weeks, with the OnePlus 15R confirmed for a US release on December 17th.
