The original Snapdragon 8 Elite was introduced in 2024 as the company’s first mobile chipset featuring an Oryon CPU, then came the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 next year as its successor, which was earlier supposed to launch as Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, but Qualcomm had a different plan.

A few weeks after the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2’s announcement, Qualcomm followed up with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 as an affordable flagship alternative for premium mid-range devices. While it appears to be a successor to Snapdragon 8 Elite, the latter actually delivers better performance. The inconsistent naming scheme from Qualcomm is confusing many people, so we’ve created this detailed post explaining how the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, and Snapdragon 8 Elite stack up against each other.

Here’s the spec sheet for a quick overview:

	Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5	Snapdragon 8 Gen 5	Snapdragon 8 Elite
Announced	September 2025	November 2025	October 2024
Process node	TSMC’s 3nm (N3P)	TSMC’s 3nm (N3P)	TSMC’s 3nm (N3E)
CPU cores	8-core	8-core	8-core
CPU cores	2 x 4.61GHz — Oryon (3rd gen) 6 x 3.63GHz — Oryon (3rd gen)	2 x 3.8GHz — Oryon (3rd gen) 6 x 3.32GHz — Oryon (3rd gen)	2 x 4.32GHz — Oryon (2nd gen) 6 x 3.53GHz — Oryon (2nd gen)
GPU	Adreno 840 Ray tracing support Snapdragon Elite Gaming features	Adreno 829 Ray tracing support Snapdragon Elite Gaming features	Adreno 830 Ray tacing support Snapdragon Elite Gaming features
NPU	Qualcomm Hexagon NPU Agentic AI support	Qualcomm Hexagon NPU Agentic AI support	Qualcomm Hexagon NPU
Memory	LPDDR5X, up to 5.3GHz	LPDDR5X, up to 4.8GHz	LPDDR5X, up to 5.3GHz
Storage	UFS 4.1	UFS 4.1	UFS 4.0
Camera	Qualcomm Spectra ISP (Triple AI-ISPs, 20-bit) up to 320MP single camera up to 108MP single camera (MFNR, ZSL, 30fps) up to 48MP triple camera (MFNR, ZSL, 30fps) up to 4K/120fps video recording real-time semantic segmentation (limitless) Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec	Qualcomm Spectra ISP (Triple AI-ISPs, 20-bit) up to 320MP single camera up to 108MP single camera (MFNR, ZSL, 30fps) up to 48MP triple camera (MFNR, ZSL, 30fps) up to 4K/120fps video recording real-time semantic segmentation	Qualcomm Spectra ISP (Triple AI-ISPs, 18-bit) up to 320MP single camera up to 108MP single camera (MFNR, ZSL, 30fps) up to 48MP triple cameras (MFNR, ZSL, 30fps) real-time semantic segmentation (limitless) up to 8K/30fps video recording
Connectivity	Snapdragon X85 5G modem download speed: 12.5Gbps (peak) upload speed: 3.7Gbps (peak) Wi-Fi 7 (peak speed: 5.8Gbps) Bluetooth 6.0	Snapdragon X80 5G modem download speed: 10Gbps (peak) upload speed: 3.5Gbps (peak) Wi-Fi 7 (peak speed:5.8 Gbps) Bluetooth 6.0	Snapdragon X80 5G modem download speed: 10Gbps (peak) upload speed: 3.5Gbps (peak) Wi-Fi 7 (peak speed: 5.8 Gbps) Bluetooth 6.0

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 vs 8 Gen 5 vs 8 Elite: Benchmark numbers

Note: The benchmark tests were performed on the iQOO 15 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), OnePlus 15R (Snapdragon 8 Gen 5), and OnePlus 13 (Snapdragon 8 Elite).

Geekbench performance

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, unsurprisingly, achieves the highest score in both single-core and multi-core tests (3649, 10682), followed by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which gets about 7% higher single-core score than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, while the multi-core scores for the two chips don’t have a big difference.

	Single core	Multi core
SD 8 Elite Gen 5	3,649	10,682
SD 8 Gen 5	2,837	9,352
SD 8 Elite	3,026	9,306

AnTuTu performance

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is far ahead of the other two, with a total score above 3.7 million. The Snapdragon 8 Elite almost touches the 3 million mark, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is just below it, scoring 2.96 million points.

	AnTuTu score
SD 8 Elite Gen 5	3,751,084
SD 8 Gen 5	2,961,236
SD 8 Elite	2,994,563

3DMark performance

The result isn’t any different on 3DMark than AnTuTu and Geekbench. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 pulls off the best high score in the Wild Life Extreme test, followed by the Snapdragon 8 Elite and then the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5.

	High score	Low score
SD 8 Elite Gen 5	7,240	3,219
SD 8 Gen 5	5,009	3,321
SD 8 Elite	6,628	4,155

However, things get interesting when you look at low scores. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has the worst low score of 3,219. In contrast, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 scores 3,321 points, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite scores 4,155 points. This could mean a higher gaming stability on a Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered device than on devices powered by the other two chipsets. However, that also depends on the software tuning, gaming optimizations, and cooling solution of a device.

The benchmarks focus solely on performance and don’t address other important aspects, such as connectivity and camera capabilities. Let’s talk about them and other important stuff in the following section to get the complete picture.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 vs 8 Gen 5 vs 8 Elite: Key differences

CPU, GPU, and NPU

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and 8 Gen 5 have been manufactured using TSMC’s 3nm (N3P) node, which offers slightly improved performance and efficiency over the N3E node used for the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

All three Qualcomm chips have the same 2+6 core configuration. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and 8 Gen 5 feature third-generation Oryon CPU, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite has a second-generation Oryon CPU. Despite a generation older CPU, the 8 Elite beats the 8 Gen 5 on benchmarks because its cores run at higher clock speeds.

As for graphics rendering, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features the powerful Adreno 840 GPU with excellent ray tracing capabilities, along with a full suite of Snapdragon Elite Gaming features to enhance the gaming experience further. In contrast, the 8 Gen 5 has an Adreno 829, and the 8 Elite has Adreno 830. Both GPUs support ray tracing and offer Snapdragon Elite Gaming features.

Now, coming to AI capabilities, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features the largest and most capable NPU with agentic AI support. The NPU performance of the two other chips is nearly identical, but the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5’s official page mentions agentic AI support, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Elite doesn’t.

Camera and Imaging

The camera capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and 8 Gen 5 are nearly identical, except that the latest Elite chip features Advanced Professional Video (APV) codes for near-lossless, pro-grade capture and limitless real-time semantic segmentation. The Snapdragon 8 Elite features a lower-bit ISP, while the rest of its specs are mostly the same as those of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5.

Connectivity

While all three Qualcomm chips offer robust connectivity features, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 excels by delivering higher download and upload speeds over 5G. The rest of the connectivity specs are almost the same.

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