Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 Launching in Late September, Phones in October

Qualcomm typically unveils its flagship Snapdragon processor at an annual summit held towards the end of the year, with the last two events taking place in October. Prior summits were usually scheduled for November or December. But, a credible China-based tipster has already disclosed the expected launch date of Qualcomm’s upcoming flagship SoC — the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 — and it’s sooner than anyone could have anticipated.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 Set for Early Launch in September, First Phones to Debut in October

The Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 was set to be announced by Qualcomm at the end of September, Digital Chat Station said, and represents a further month’s lead on last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite launch date, which was confirmed to be October 21. The tipster also claims the first phones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 SoC may arrive in October. This is expected because OEMs usually release their new devices, with the latest flagship SoC, typically in China, within a month of the SoC’s launch.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 is expected to be featured in devices like the Xiaomi 16, OnePlus 14, and iQOO 14, all of which are anticipated to adopt the new chipset. The early launch of Qualcomm’s next-generation processor will allow manufacturers to better compete with Apple’s iPhones, which traditionally debut in September.

Rumors suggest that the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 will be built using TSMC’s 3nm process node and offer significant performance improvements over its predecessor. It’s expected to provide a 30% increase in GPU performance and a 25% boost in CPU performance. The chipset will feature an Adreno 840 GPU clocked at 1.35GHz and is rumored to have a base frequency of 4.4GHz with second-generation Oryon CPU cores. Benchmarks suggest the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 could score over 3.8 million points in AnTuTu tests.

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