Qualcomm prepares two versions of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. The 2nm “Pro” model will be expensive, while the standard variant will lead the 2026 flagships.
Qualcomm has changed its commercial planning during the current year through the debut of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5followed promptly by the release of a low-performance variant identified as Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. The rumors suggest that the San Diego giant will maintain the same scheme over the next two years by proposing two different variations for the series Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. The variant with higher performance will receive the suffix “Pro” and will find space mainly within defined flagship stores “amazing” due out in 2026, as the cost of the component will be particularly burdensome for smartphone manufacturers. The standard version chip will instead be the backbone of global shipments for next season’s flagship products due to its affordable market positioning compared to the top version.
Smart Chip Insider on Weibo refers to it as the processor Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro will represent the absolute debut of Qualcomm in the field of large-scale production via the 2 nanometer process developed by TSMCwith a direct economic impact resulting from the estimated cost of $30,000 for every wafer produced with this next-generation technology. Data relating to the previous generation indicates how Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 had already reached a cost of $280 per unit based on the specific contractual clauses and supply volumes agreed with the various customers in the mobile sector. The integration of the new Oryon CPU architecture and the adoption of improved lithographs make it very likely that the threshold will be exceeded 300 dollars for the upcoming SoC intended for flagship phones. Manufacturers will be faced with the need to carefully evaluate the adoption of the high-end version to avoid excessive increases in the list prices of the final devices which would directly hit consumers’ wallets.
The standard model of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 it should not undergo marked price changes, however this choice will lead to the absence of memory support RAM LPDDR6 and the use of one GPU with lower performance than its more powerful counterpart. Problems related to energy consumption Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5forced to require high amounts of current to pass the chip’s performance tests A19 Promake the implementation of highly effective heat dissipation systems essential for the variant “Pro”. The critical situation currently affecting the memory sector cobrings a significant increase in the production costs of smartphones, with forecasts of increases close to 25% on the total cost of the materials necessary for the assembly of each single new production model. Many industrial companies hypothesize a return to configurations equipped with suns 4 GB in RAM for the entrance area and slow down the passage to the 16 GB in RAM for top-of-the-line phones due to the strong economic pressures affecting the entire industry. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 will probably emerge as the solution preferred by the mass market compared to the higher performing version.
