As Q3 of 2026 comes to an end soon, Qualcomm has announced that this year’s flagship smartphone will have a new chip powering them – the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6.
Both are built on a 2nm process and use Qualcomm’s custom Oryon CPU, rearchitected Adreno GPU, and Hexagon NPU, but the Extreme model sits at the top with additional performance and imaging capabilities. Qualcomm says the dual-platform approach is intended to give smartphone makers more choice while extending its latest technologies across a broader range of premium devices.
Specifically, the Oryon CPUs run 2x Prime cores up to 5GHz, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 delivering a 10% CPU performance increase and 37% improvement in power efficiency over its predecessor, while the Extreme version raises CPU performance by 13%.
Meanwhile, the rearchitected Adreno GPU is now 35% stronger in performance and 40% better in power efficiency, with the Extreme version coming out at 44% and 40%. The latter also comes with Adreno Neural Fusion, which combines dedicated matrix and AI processing capabilities with the GPU to handle tasks such as AI-powered super resolution, frame generation, and image reconstruction.
As for the Hexagon NPU, we can look at a 14% performance increase for the standard model. On the Extreme Gen 6, the NPU is up to 35% faster, with up to 33% better performance per watt.
Camera-wise, there’s the new Intelligent Pixel Control that analyzes and optimizes individual pixels to reduce issues such as halos and lens flare, while the Elite Color Engine is designed to improve colour consistency and video processing. The Extreme platform also adds support for Advanced Professional Video (APV). Video capture goes as high as 8K at 60FPS or 4K at 240FPS, while the platform supports up to three 64MP cameras simultaneously.
The standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 retains several of these camera technologies, including Intelligent Pixel Control, Elite Color Engine and Motion Intelligence for AI-assisted image stabilisation.
As for connectivity, both of them utilize the brand-new X105 5G Modem-RF System, with peak download speeds of up to 14.8Gbps and upload speeds of up to 4.2Gbps.
The Extreme version also adds 5G NR-NTN satellite readiness, while Qualcomm’s FastConnect 8800 connectivity system brings support for the next generation of Wi-Fi. Qualcomm lists peak Wi-Fi speeds of up to 11.6Gbps, alongside support for Wi-Fi 8, Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6.
For the standard model, Qualcomm is also targeting lower modem power consumption, claiming up to 30% lower power consumption from the X105 modem-RF system, alongside improvements to multi-antenna reception and download throughput.
Participating Brands
Qualcomm says smartphones based on the two new platforms will come from HONOR, iQOO, Motorola, OnePlus, OPPO, REDMI, RedMagic, vivo and Xiaomi.
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