The Snapdragon 8 Elite represents new hope in the mobile space – it’s the first chipset in a long time to have a dedicated CPU core (and it doesn’t come out of Apple). The GPU is also custom-built and is next-generation to boot. And Qualcomm found a way to increase clock speeds higher than other smartphone chipsets by a considerable margin. Everything looks good on paper, let’s see if expectations match reality.
Here we will focus on comparing the 8 Elite with the previous two generations of the Snapdragon 8-series. We’re working on a separate post that will pit the Elite against its main rival, the Dimensity 9400.
We will use the Realme GT7 Pro for this test
We’ll be using the Realme GT7 Pro for our first round of testing for the Snapdragon 8 Elite. And as mentioned above, we’ve selected a few Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 8 Gen 2 phones for comparison. Some of these are gaming phones, so they should represent the best performance of older chipsets. To that end, we should mention that we put the phone in GT mode (i.e. high performance mode) for this test.
Let’s look at the CPU first as this is the biggest change in this generation. It uses Oryon cores, two versions – two Prime cores and six Performance cores. This is not a Cortex core like on MediaTek and Samsung chipsets, but an internal design from Qualcomm. Note that these are not the same Oryon cores we see in the Snapdragon X Elite in laptops, but rather the second generation.
2x Oryon 4.32GHz prime cores + 6x Oryon performance cores
Both Prime cores run at speeds up to 4.32GHz, which is an incredible speed for a pocketable device. The Apple A18 Pro broke the 4GHz barrier earlier this year, but only just – it goes up to 4.05GHz. The Cortex-X925 Dimensity 9400 stays below 4GHz and runs at 3.63GHz. Outside of laptops, the highest clock speed you can find on a mobile device is the Apple M4 on the iPad Pro (2024) tablet at 4.4GHz. But keep in mind that these are 11” and 13” tablets and are easier to store cold.
Looking at Geekbench 6, the phones are neatly grouped by generation. The 8 Elite represents a massive 31% increase in multi-core performance over the 8 Gen 3’s best results – and those results come from a gaming phone in max effort mode and an overclocked “for the Galaxy” chip in the S24 Ultra.
Moving on to single-core testing, this is where the Oryon Prime’s high-frequency core will shine. And it shines with a blinding 36% advantage over the rest of the best. Looking to the next generation, Oryon posted scores double those of some 8 Gen 2 phones (Cortex-X3 Prime core) or just 52% higher scores than the best 8 Gen 2 phones in their best performance mode.
Let’s look at the next graph. The Adreno 830 is built on a new architecture using a slice design with dedicated memory for each slice. The 830 has three of these slices clocked at up to 1.1GHz.
Three GPU slices up to 1.1GHz, plus dedicated memory
Again, the generation gap is quite clear. The 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test (running at 2160p) posted a score 21% higher than the best score we’ve seen from the Adreno 750 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Going back to the 8 Gen 2, the difference is a stunning 68%.
The 8 Elite features the latest iteration of hardware-accelerated ray tracing. This technology began to develop on mobile devices after first being used on desktops. The two-year-old 8 Gen 2 GPU only managed about half the score of the new Elite chip. The difference with the 8 Gen 3 is smaller at 26%, but it’s still an impressive generational improvement.
Lastly, AnTuTu tries to combine CPU, GPU, memory, and other tests into a single score that represents overall performance. Taking all this into account, there is more variability – a well-specced 8 Gen 2 phone can match a lower-performing 8 Gen 3 phone. But then again, the Snapdragon 8 Elite – or rather the Realme GT7 Pro that houses it – leads the older model by some margin (around 25%).
This is not the end of this story, this is just the first chapter. We still have more tests to run, including the all-important ongoing performance tests. We also needed to run tests with GT mode disabled (we ran several tests and the phone didn’t lose much performance).
We also experienced some issues during testing, but this may just be due to ongoing issues – the full reveal of the Realme GT7 Pro is scheduled for November 4, although the company has confirmed some details and even let us run some tests on a review unit. we have it in the office.