There’s no question that the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset is the best chip available for Android phones right now. Not only does the chip offer incredible performance, we’ve already seen how its improved power efficiency can boost battery life.
So we’re quite excited for what the follow-up chip could have to offer.
A new leak from Digital Chat Station on Weibo covers just that, giving us an idea of what the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 might have to offer. If this leak is accurate, the new chipset could come with second-generation Oryon CPU cores — which are said to offer 25% better performance.
But that’s not all. The leak claims that the GPU will get an extra 4MB of cache space, growing from 12MB to 16MB. According to Digital Chat Station this could mean a performance increase of up to 30%.
The GPU is also said to support PDDR5X and LPDDR6 memory. That gives phone makers the opportunity to upgrade their own RAM, safe in the knowledge that it won’t be wasted by an incompatible GPU.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2: What else can we expect?
If we’re lucky the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 chipset will also take advantage of TSMC’s N3P process, which Apple is rumored to be using with the A19. This upgraded 3nm process should offer additional performance and efficiency boosts compared to the original Snapdragon 8 Elite.
The 2nm chips that TSMC just announced would likely offer a much bigger performance boost. But since those aren’t going to be close to ready for the release of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, we’ll take whatever extra boosts we can get.
The chipset itself likely won’t be revealed until much later in the year. If Qualcomm sticks to its usual scheduling, then we’re going to have to wait until around October for an official reveal — and the first benchmarks showcasing what the chipset can do.
Unfortunately, we likey won’t see the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 in a physical phone until the very end of the year. But we should see it powering the likes of the OnePlus 14, Samsung Galaxy S26 and others. Assuming Samsung doesn't jump back to Exynos chips again, as some rumors claim.
Stay tuned for more rumors and leaks on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 here at Tom's Guide as we get closer to launch.
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