I compared Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips — here’s what’s actually different
There's more to these chips than confusing names.
Qualcomm has released two high-end chipsets, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, this year. At first glance, they appear to be quite similar, boasting the same 5GHz CPU clock speed, the same Qualcomm X105 5G Modem, and FastConnect 8800 capabilities for 5G and Wi-Fi networking. They also share the same Snapdragon Sound audio and Intelligent Pixel Control and Elite Color Engine features for photography.
Both chips feature a new Hexagon Element Accelerator for AI support, and a Sensing Hub with dual micro NPUs for improved voice activation.
The main differences lie in the AI capabilities. The Extreme model has the AI-dedicated Adreno Matrix Cores, which support Adreno Neural Fusion and offload other matrix-based AI workloads from the CPU and NPU. This generation's power savings are attributed to Adreno Neural Fusion, but it requires developers to support these technologies.
The Extreme model also has 18MB of High Performance Memory and a 50% larger shared memory for the Hexagon AI accelerator, allowing it to handle larger models. Additionally, the Extreme chip supports VVC (H.266) decoding and APV, 8K60, and 4K240 encoding, which the standard Elite Gen 6 does not. However, it remains to be seen if these features will be widely adopted in smartphones. The Elite Extreme Gen 6 is Qualcomm's best chipset, but it may not be necessary for most consumers.
Written by urgent.news from Android Authority's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
