TL; DR
- The Snapdragon 8 Elite’s benchmarks are very high, even beating the Dimensity 9400.
- There could be two versions of the chip: one at 4.09 GHz and the other at 4.32 GHz.
- The underclocked version of the chip is said to have thermal issues and a high power draw of 20W.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite has been making headlines, but not all for the right reasons. While the chip’s performance benchmarks are impressive, concerns about its thermal management and power consumption are growing.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Leaked Benchmarks
Starting with performance, the Snapdragon 8 Elite scored 3,133,570 on AnTuTu, with a CPU score of 702,689, GPU at 1,330,570, memory at 616,268, and UX at 484,556. These numbers show a significant jump in both single-core and multi-core performance.
ALSO SEE: Dimensity 9400 SoC Powered OPPO Find X8 Series Debuts October 24
The Geekbench scores for the overclocked version of the chip are 3,216 for single-core and 10,051 for multi-core, translating to 30% better multi-core performance and 35% better single-core performance compared to previous generations.
The Adreno 830 GPU also scored high, with 125 fps in GFXBench and 166 fps in 3DMark Wild Life Offscreen, making it even more powerful than the Dimensity 9400 that was released yesterday. The chip supports 4K resolution at 144 Hz, which is also impressive for a mobile device.
All this power brings 2 major drawbacks: heat and battery life
Reports suggest that the underclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite consumes over 20W of power under heavy workloads, causing temperatures to soar up to 98.5°C. Analysts claim that this makes the chip hotter than previous high-heat and low-efficiency models like the Snapdragon 888. This is the underclocked version of the chip, mind you.
The heat might not be as big of a concern as the power draw since manufacturers can probably cool down devices with active cooling and other methods. It’s no wonder that devices like the OnePlus 13, Xiaomi 15 series, Redmi K80 Pro, and other Snapdragon 8 Elite devices are all rumored to have some really large batteries inside.
While TSMC’s 3nm N3E process promises better efficiency, all of this just means that the Snapdragon 8 Elite could struggle with poor thermals, especially given its 2x 4.09 GHz (2x 4.32 GHz for the full version) prime core clock speed, which surpasses the Dimensity 9400’s 1x 3.6 GHz by a huge margin.
ALSO READ: Best Snapdragon 8 Elite Smartphones To Debut in 2024
Snapdragon 8 Elite: Two Versions of the Chip?
In the very post, the screenshot of SM8750 or the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s SoC page was also shared. We can see that it’s using a dual cluster architecture—2x 4.09 GHz and 6x 2.78 GHz. The GPU is the Adreno 830 with a base clock speed of 1.25 GHz. It says that this is version Rev1—the first official version of the chip—and that it’s ready for automatic testing soon.
Remember that there will be two versions of the chip. This is one and the other would be even more powerful, with the two prime cores clocked at up to 4.32 GHz and the six other cores clocked at 3.53 GHz. All of this could translate to even more power draw and heat.
The chipset (or chipsets) is expected to officially launch between October 21st and 24th at the Snapdragon Summit, but until Qualcomm addresses these heating issues, there’s a possibility the Snapdragon 8 Elite might face challenges in real-world usage, particularly with devices overheating during gaming or processing tasks.
You can follow Smartprix on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google News. Visit smartprix.com for the latest tech and auto news, reviews, and guides.
