Qualcomm has introduced the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, which is the new successor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 flagship SoC designed for smartphones and tablets. Early benchmarks indicate that the Snapdragon 8 Elite is a strong contender against MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 and Apple's A18 Pro.
CPU Performance Insights
When it comes to CPU performance, the Snapdragon 8 Elite seems to have surpassed Apple's A18 Pro in multi-core tests. Geekerwan's review shows that the Snapdragon 8 Elite achieved an impressive score of 10,521 points in Geekbench 6, breaking the 10,000-point mark. However, in single-core performance, the 8 Elite still trails behind Apple's latest chip, even though it has seen a significant generational improvement.
GPU Capabilities
On the GPU front, the Snapdragon 8 Elite's Adreno GPU shows strong performance. It scored an impressive 18,007 points in Geekbench 6's OpenCL test, which is notably higher than the approximately 16,000 points achieved by the Dimensity 9400. It’s worth noting that the GPU's performance can vary based on the thermal characteristics of the smartphone it’s in, so that should be considered.
Geekerwan's analysis indicates that the Adreno GPU of the Snapdragon 8 Elite is very close in performance to the Immortalis-G925 found in the Dimensity 9400, with both exhibiting a similar efficiency curve. The Snapdragon's GPU scored around 2,600 points, putting it well ahead of the A18 Pro, which managed only about 2,100 points while using slightly more power.
Real-World Gaming Tests
In practical gaming tests using Honkai Impact 3, the results were consistent. Both the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Dimensity 9400 maintained around 60 FPS at 'very high' settings during a 30-minute session, with power use of 6.2 and 6.0 watts respectively. Meanwhile, the A18 Pro achieved only 51.2 FPS while using about 5.5 watts.
Clearly, Qualcomm's choice to customize the Snapdragon 8 Elite has proven to be a smart move. The SoC is now not only more powerful but also more efficient than before, having outperformed Apple's A18 Pro in both GPU and multi-core CPU benchmarks. Nevertheless, Apple still leads in single-core performance and overall CPU efficiency, though the gap has narrowed significantly.
Geekerwan's analysis showcases the advancements in mobile processing power.
