Qualcomm Reportedly Developing Fourth Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Variant for More Affordable Flagship Phones

Qualcomm has been rumoured to be developing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series for quite some time now. However, it seems that the chipmaker isn't done with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 lineup just yet. A tipster claims that the company is preparing a fourth variant of the flagship mobile platform, and it could be aimed at providing a similar premium performance as the existing variants, on more affordable smartphones.

New Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Chip on the Cards

In a Weibo post, tipster Digital Chat Station said that Qualcomm is preparing another Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant with the model number SM8850-1-AB. As per the tipster, this platform could be positioned as a relatively long-lived chipset, which means it could still power new smartphones even as Qualcomm continues to its next-generation flagship silicon, the purported Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series.

At present, there are three known versions of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. First, the SM8850-5-AC is a seven-core variant used in models such as the Oppo Find N6. Meanwhile, the standard SM8850-AC comes with an eight-core CPU and powers handsets including the OnePlus 15 and iQOO 15.

Lastly, you have a slightly overclocked version, which was recently introduced as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 for Galaxy during Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event. This chip powers the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 8.

The rumoured SM8850-1-AB could likely arrive as the fourth member of this family. The tipster claims its benchmark scores may closely align with those of the standard eight-core chip. For context, the OnePlus 15 powered by this SoC registered 3,622 (single-core) and 10,712 (multi-core) scores on Geekbench in Gadgets 360's tests. As per the leaker, the chip may also retain the same overall feature set. The purported Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant is said to be in smartphones priced below CNY 4,000 (roughly Rs. 57,000) in China.

Qualcomm, notably, originally launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in September 2025. The standard SM8850-AC chip is manufactured using TSMC's 3nm N3P process. It features Qualcomm's third-generation custom Oryon CPU with eight cores and a peak clock speed of 4.65GHz. Qualcomm claimed up to a 23 percent overall performance improvement and up to 20 percent better power efficiency compared with the previous Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Meanwhile, the successor to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is already believed to be on the horizon. Previous leaks suggest Qualcomm is developing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro, with the latter expected to sit at the top of its next-generation mobile chipset lineup.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series is reported to be manufactured using TSMC's newer 2nm N2P process. The Pro variant could bring support for LPDDR6 RAM and UFS 5.0 storage, while the standard model may retain LPDDR5x and UFS 4.1 support. Both chips have previously been tipped to feature a 2+3+3 CPU configuration.