more powerful than the Apple M2, but at what price?

Qualcomm has one ambition with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, to regain supremacy in high-end mobile chips. The firm is putting all the chances on its side by offering a system-on-chip (SoC) engraved in 3 nm by TSMC, with Oryon cores. The chip for high-end Android smartphones therefore inherits a design close to that of the Snapdragon X Elite which powers certain Windows PCs, which explains its name change. Far from being limited to new cores, Qualcomm is claiming improvements in all areas that matter (GPU, NPU, ISP, etc.) and this seems to be confirmed.

On paper, the Snapdragon 8 Elite promises to be up to 45% more efficient than its predecessor and to consume less power. A valid speech for the “Oryon” CPU part composed of two cores clocked at 4.32 GHz and six other cores at 3.53 GHz, as well as the GPU (+40% performance, -40% energy consumption) or the ‘AI.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is faster than the Apple M2… with a fan

Expected in the most powerful Android smartphones, the Snapdragon 8 Elite will take its place in the RedMagic 10 Ultra. Nubia will announce its new gaming phone very soon and the successor to the RedMagic 9S Pro is already appearing on Geekbench. The test gives a good overview of the processor’s capabilities and the SoC surprises when combined with a fan. The RedMagic 10 Ultra with a fan achieves a single-core score of 3,229 and reaches 10,300 points in multi-core.

With this result, the gaming smartphone does better than the A18 Pro chip in the iPhone 16 Pro… and the Apple M2 found in particular in the 2022 MacBook Air. This chip is not the most recent – ​​Apple now offers M4s -, but you have to take into account that it is not a mobile chip. Indeed, it targets more powerful devices such as tablets (iPad Pro 2022, iPad Air 2024) and Macs (MacBook Air and MacBook Pro from 2022, Mac mini from 2023).

In detail, the A18 Pro chip obtains a slightly higher single-core score (3,353 according to the 01lab measurement, 3,461 among our colleagues at Notebookcheck) and “only” 8,208 (01lab) to 8,546 (Notebookcheck) in the multi-core test. As for the M2 chip, it displays a score of 2,599 in single-core and 10,089 in multi-core on Geekbench 6. As an indication, the latest basic M4 chip runs around 3,600 in single-core and 14 600 in multi-core tests on Geekbench 6.

Impressive performance, but overheating issues?

Besides the comparison game, the most interesting thing is that the Snapdragon 8 Elite seems to confirm its great promises. The benchmark results are also close to those put forward even before the presentation of the chip (3,221 points in single-core and 10,426 points in the multi-core test). These results provided by the manufacturer should be taken with a grain of salt, but today we see that the RedMagic 10 Ultra is very close… with a cooling solution. Other tests are starting to emerge, such as those of the Realme GT7 Pro which also features the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Tested in a classic smartphone, that is to say without a fan, the Qualcomm SoC is less reassuring. The Realme GT7 Pro manages to obtain results that place it slightly above the A18 Pro in multi-core, but a little below in single-core performance. The problem is that it tends to overheat according to Android Authority, which claims that Realme’s next flagship model was unable to complete 3DMark’s most demanding benchmarks (GPU stress tests) due to serious overheating problems. Even in power saving mode, testing could not be completed.

During repeated failures, the data collected mentioned a peak temperature of 46°C. For Android Authority, it is clear that the manufacturer is trying to manipulate the benchmarks by cutting off the test when the phone becomes too hot. The site was also able to complete tests by launching “disguised” versions of 3D Mark or Geekbench 6. On the first, Android Authority noted a sharp drop in performance at the start of the Wild Life Stress Test benchmark, then good stability of the share of the smartphone. The Realme GT7 Pro doesn’t reach the level of stability of a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, but it maintains a clear performance advantage.

Optimizations, overheating… a smartphone equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite creates controversy

On the other hand, the Realme GT7 Pro seems to do better in the Geekbench 6 performance tests. Indeed, its scores drop drastically when the application is renamed, suggesting manipulation of the results. When the application is camouflaged, its single-core score drops from 3,011 to 1,110 points (-63%), and its multi-core score goes from 9,143 to 4,857 points. Worse still, the Realme GT7 Pro equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite performs less well than smartphones equipped with the old Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 when performance is “unoptimized”.

Realme finally admitted to using “optimizations” to favor its device on Geekbench 6, but the brand assures that the 3DMark crashes are linked to a bug. “Regarding the 3DMark issue, we also noticed the same situation. We will release an updated version; please restart your phone tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and you should be able to run tests with the original software”claims Realme. The Android Authority site has tried the experiment again and confirms that it is now possible to carry out stress tests without crashing, but the Realme GT7 Pro remains very hot (around 47°C). However, other smartphones already have even higher temperatures.

Regarding Geekbench 6, the brand mentions “targeted optimizations in terms of temperature and performance management”, adding that this was “common industry practice”. It remains to be seen whether the problem is linked to a single manufacturer or if the Snapdragon 8 Elite is a SoC that is difficult to master due to excessive heating. Realme assures that its flagship model has a powerful cooling system, which is not necessarily reassuring for the future. Indeed, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is an SoC likely to take place in more compact or folding smartphones. Models which cannot necessarily offer an imposing cooling system.

As a reminder, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is arriving this end of the year on smartphones like the Asus ROG Phone 9, the Honor Magic7 Pro or the Xiaomi 15. Some of these models will arrive in Europe before the end of the year or beginning 2025.

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