At the end of September, the American company Qualcomm will unveil its new flagship processor, Snapdragon 8 Elite 2, which will become the main competitor to the top-tier Dimensity 9500 chip from Taiwanese MediaTek. Now, some quite interesting information has emerged about it.
According to a reliable insider, Digital Chat Station, the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite 2, which may be commercially named Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, will be available on the market in two variants.
The source states that these will be single-chip systems, Snapdragon 8 Elite 2, with internal catalog numbers SM8850 and SM8850s. The key difference between them will be the different manufacturing processes.
The SM8850 will be manufactured by TSMC using the proven 3nm N3P process, while the production of the SM8850s will be handled by Samsung, employing a more advanced 2nm SF2 process, which is, in fact, experimental.
Interestingly, the SM8850s model, despite using a thinner process, will be cheaper than the basic SM8850, but it will also be released significantly later — only in early 2026.
There is currently no clarity on which devices will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 in the SM8850s variant, but it is assumed that Samsung will use it in their flagship Galaxy S26 series.