A less powerful version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor is coming. This version is equipped with a smaller number of performance cores (Performance CPU cores) compared to the original Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, and initial leaks have set performance expectations for this new version with 7 cores as well.
We are about to see the return of a new Snapdragon 8 chipset series with 7 cores. At the moment, Qualcomm has not made any official announcement yet. However, early signs have emerged on Geekbench suggesting that Qualcomm has developed a less powerful version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
As a reminder, Qualcomm created an equivalent version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite last year as well. In short, this 7-core variant performed well and helped the Find N5 achieve excellent boot times in our tests. However, only Oppo adopted this variant, while the Galaxy Z Fold7 featured an 8-core Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy branded variant instead (currently $1,050 – refurbished on Amazon). Now, the Find N6 is the first device with a 7-core version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
Like its physical predecessor, this new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant ditches a single performance core for up to 7 cores in total while maintaining clock speeds of 3.6GHz. Likewise, clock speeds remain 4.6GHz on the Prime cores. As a result, the single-core performance of this new variant is in line with what we’ve come to expect from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. However, a score of 3,524 would put the 7-core variant second from bottom in our database for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, just ahead of the OnePlus 15.
GPU performance was also unaffected with an OpenCL score of 24,103. Incidentally, this result will see the 7-core variant finish near the top between the Poco F8 Ultra and RedMagic 11 Pro. However, multi-core performance suffers. Based on our benchmarks, this 7-core variant lags behind its 8-core sibling by about 17% in the Geekbench 6.5 multi-core test.
As a result, this 7-core variant scores almost the same as the 8-core version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite (previous generation). However, the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant outperforms its 7-core predecessor by about 10%. Currently, the 7-core Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant is expected to arrive on March 17 when Oppo introduces the Find N6 globally. It remains to be seen at this point whether other Android OEMs will adopt this variant instead of the 8-core option.
