What you need to know about the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in three minutes

As regular as the waves crashing onto the Hawaiian shore, Qualcomm has released another phone chipset in autumn 2025. I know all about it, and indeed the waves, as the company was kind enough to invite me to the launch this year. For the sake of propriety, I should say it paid my way, too, but I’ve tried not to let this sway my judgement!

Here, then, is what you need to know about the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in as few words as I can.

How much faster is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 than last year’s chip?

Around a fifth, claims Qualcomm, and early testing I saw suggest it isn’t lying. Although the company does, of course, cherry pick the benchmarks it shares. For example, in Geekbench 6.5 it returns around 3,820 in the single-core test and 12,220 in the multicore section. That compares to roughly 3,000 and 9,800 for the Galaxy S25 Ultra with last year’s chip.

Here’s a quick summary of what Qualcomm reckons the new chipset will get in different tests.

What can the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 do that last year’s model couldn’t?

The short answer to this is nothing. The real promise is that it can do everything faster, whether that’s AI-based reasoning (37% faster) or gaming (23%). There is a longer answer.

One of Qualcomm’s big themes of this launch is that AI in your phone can act as your personal assistant. And that the faster the NPU (the neural processing unit) inside your phone, the more advanced the assistant. It naturally wants you to buy a phone with the Elite 5 in, and promises that you’ll get real-time help as a result.

In particular it reckons the NPU in the Gen 5 is 37% faster than last year’s model, as well as being more power efficient. Now, will you be able to tell this difference if you switch from one phone to another? Perhaps. But the real difference will come when you upgrade from a handset that doesn’t include an NPU at all.

Is there anything for creators?

The biggie is support for the APV (Advanced Professional Video) codec. This gives editors more control when editing, but it’s only relevant to enthusiastic amateurs or professionals. There’s also Snapdragon Audio Sense that “brings pro-level sound to mobile devices”.

Qualcomm also says we should expect sharper videos with better dynamic range and richer colours, through a mix of AI and the Qualcomm Spectra Image Signal Processor. But you still need a damn fine set of optics, which will be dependent on the phone maker.

“For years, phones have used AI to enhance photos, tweaking lighting, sharpening details,” said Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm’s Group GM of Mobile, Compute and XR at the official unveiling of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, “but with this tight integration between our Spectra ISP and the NPU, we’re now applying the same enhancements to video.

“What that means is every frame gets processed with the same intelligence and precision as your photos.”

Will phones based Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 have a longer battery life?

Theoretically, yes. Qualcomm reckons that everything from the “mobile connectivity system” to the processor to the NPU to the GPU are more efficient than ever before; of these, the mobile connectivity could make the biggest difference with “40% more power savings” according to Qualcomm’s documentation.

But we don’t yet have any real-world data, so let’s see what happens when they’re released into the world this week and next.

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