Qualcomm has unveiled two versions of its flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 processor—the standard Gen 6 and the higher-tier Extreme Gen 6—to serve different tiers of premium smartphones launching next year. This dual offering lets device manufacturers choose performance levels that suit their target markets, following Qualcomm's history of dominating Android performance.

The standard Gen 6 is built on a 2nm process with eight Oryon CPU cores reaching 5GHz, 16MB of Flex Cache, and a 35 percent faster GPU than its predecessor. It supports 8K video recording at 30fps and 320-megapixel still photography, along with enhanced connectivity via Wi-Fi 8 and Bluetooth 6. The Extreme variant adds 50 percent more high-performance memory (18MB), support for AI models over 30 billion parameters, dual video codec support, and superior video recording at 8K 60fps or 4K 240fps slow-motion. Gamers gain additional benefit from new Matrix Cores in the GPU offering AI-powered super resolution and frame generation.