Just how fast is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6? I benchmarked it

Qualcomm has two new flagship chips this year: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. While the two processors share the same TSMC 2nm process, Oryon CPU architecture, and next-generation Adreno GPU architecture, there are some important differences in AI acceleration and video codec capabilities.

So, how much faster are they than last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5? We’ve been tracking Qualcomm’s internal reference phones and have gone hands-on with the latest model to find out. This year’s reference device is powered by the Extreme version of Qualcomm’s latest chip. Here are the results.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 benchmarks

Starting with that huge 5GHz clock speed for the Prime CPU cores, the performance uplift over last year’s already highly clocked 4.6GHz cores means the newer model scores 10% faster, according to our Geekbench 6 results. That’s pretty much what you would expect from the raw clock speed increase, but it does suggest there haven’t been any major architectural improvements to the CPU core this year. At least not those that show up in this test. Qualcomm has rearchitected its Flex Cache memory, which could be helpful for various workloads, such as loading an AI model for CPU execution.

Despite a similarly substantial boost to 4GHz for the efficiency cores, up from 3.62GHz, Geekbench 6’s multi-core score shows only a minor 1.5% improvement for the entire octa-core cluster. That’s within the margin of error for benchmark runs and suggests that the higher clock speeds don’t translate into a major multi-core performance uplift in this test.

That doesn’t mean there are no improvements for multi-threaded workloads, but it does suggest that balancing burst performance against thermal and power constraints yields overall performance broadly comparable to last year’s model. That’s a little disappointing, although retail handsets could show greater variation.

Turning to graphics, Qualcomm’s Adreno GPU shows more substantial performance gains.

Standard rasterization performance, measured with 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme test, shows a 19% uplift over the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 reference phone. That’s a significant gain that could help more titles reach the extremely high 120fps performance targets we’ve seen met by the previous generation.

Ray tracing performance sees an even bigger 26% generation-on-generation gain, bringing Qualcomm’s Adreno GPU closer to the ray-tracing performance of Arm’s latest Mali Ultra GPUs. However, it’s worth remembering that Solar Bay features only around 30% ray-traced elements in the scene, so other workloads will produce different results.

Perhaps more impressive is that these benchmarks don’t leverage Adreno Neural Fusion technology, which is technically supported on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6’s Matrix cores inside the GPU. If you’re happy with some AI upscaling and frame generation, next-gen Android games could see even greater performance gains and/or reduced power consumption. However, remember that this technology is only available on the Extreme version of Qualcomm’s new chip, and the game in question must support it as well.

Should you wait for a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 phone?

As always with Qualcomm’s Reference Phone benchmarks, results from retail handsets will vary depending on each manufacturer’s performance profile, cooling solution, and software. Still, these results give us plenty to consider as we head into the next generation of flagship phones.

On the CPU side, the 5GHz headline feature doesn’t seem worth getting too excited about. A roughly 10% higher single-core score is certainly welcome, but it’s unlikely to translate into a dramatic difference in everyday apps. The 5GHz figure also represents a peak burst frequency rather than a clock speed the chip will necessarily sustain for long periods. It could shave some time off workloads such as video rendering and help emulators run a little more smoothly, but larger architectural changes would be needed for a major jump in CPU performance.

Graphics are a more interesting upgrade. Last year’s Snapdragon was already capable of driving modern Android games at extremely high frame rates, but the 19% gains in rasterization and 26% in ray tracing could give demanding games more headroom. The Extreme model’s additional AI upscaling and frame-generation capabilities could push performance further still, provided games actually support the technology.

Of course, both models also bring new modem, AI, and imaging capabilities that should contribute to better next-generation phones. But based on these early benchmark results, I wouldn’t rush to upgrade solely for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 or 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. It makes more sense to wait and see how these chips perform in retail phones, and what manufacturers ultimately do with their additional performance and AI capabilities.