Qualcomm may launch Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 earlier than usual, check timeline here

There’s a high chance that Qualcomm might be aiming for an early launch of its next-generation flagship mobile processor. According to tipster Digital Chat Station, the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 — which is expected to power many premium Android smartphones in late 2025 and early 2026 — could be announced in late September. This would mark a change in Qualcomm’s usual launch timeline, as the company typically unveils its top-tier processors at its annual Snapdragon Summit, held in October or later. If this turns out to be accurate, the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 would arrive a full month earlier than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which launched on October 21 last year.

The tipster claims the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 will make its debut in late September, with commercial smartphones featuring the chip arriving in October. This is consistent with past release cycles, where major smartphone brands roll out their flagship devices about a month after Qualcomm’s announcement. In China, brands like Xiaomi, OnePlus, and iQOO are likely to be among the first to introduce phones powered by the new chip. Expected models include the Xiaomi 16 series, OnePlus 14, and iQOO 14.

In terms of technical improvements, the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 is expected to be a major upgrade over last year’s chip. Built on TSMC’s advanced 3nm (N3P) process node, the chipset is rumoured to deliver a 30 per cent boost in GPU performance and a 25 per cent improvement in CPU power. It is tipped to use Qualcomm’s second-generation Oryon CPU cores, featuring a combination of performance and efficiency cores that aim to strike a balance between power and battery life. The base clock speed is expected to be around 4.4GHz, while the GPU — reportedly an Adreno 840 — is said to be clocked at 1.35GHz, which should offer smoother graphics and gaming performance.

One of the more impressive leaks surrounding the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 is its performance on benchmark tests. As per tipster Digital Chat Station, the chip has allegedly scored over 3.8 million points on AnTuTu. Meanwhile, Geekbench scores suggest up to a 25 per cent increase in single-core performance and a 20 per cent improvement in multi-core scores, compared to the previous generation.

There’s also talk of architectural enhancements, such as support for Arm’s latest v9 instruction set extensions like SME1 and SVE2. These additions are expected to boost on-device AI capabilities, computational photography, and other heavy workloads. Additionally, a larger cache size — rumoured to be around 16MB — may further enhance system responsiveness and overall performance by about 30 per cent.

More details will likely surface in the coming months, but for now, Android fans have good reason to be excited. Stay tuned to India Today Tech for all the latest on the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chip.