Qualcomm‘s next flagship chip, which is likely to be named Snapdragon 8 Elite 2, is already causing a stir ahead of its expected debut this fall.
Another leak of Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 test samples suggests that this next-generation chipset may have the highest clock speeds a smartphone chip has ever seen.
To be more precise, there were two Qualcomm reference devices (QRD) on the Network based on a chip codenamed SM8850, under which the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 passes.
One version is reported to reach a peak clock speed of 5.3GHz, outstripping even the 5.1GHz Intel Core Ultra 9 288V laptop processor, while the other reaches a more modest 4.8GHz, which is probably closer to what we’ll see in commercial devices.
For reference, the frequencies of the Snapdragon 8 Elite and its “for Galaxy” version found in smartphones of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series reach 4.32 GHz and 4.47 GHz, respectively.
However, the 5.3GHz variant may be a high-frequency engineering sample used by Qualcomm specialists for internal testing, and there is uncertainty about how stable such speeds will be in real use.