It's only been a week since the arrival of the entire iPhone 17 series, and already it's facing fresh competition, with chipmaker Qualcomm announcing its brand new Snapdragon processor for Android phones. Revealing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 at the Snapdragon Summit on September 24, the company has already declared that it's the fastest chip currently available, which includes Apple's A19 Pro, found in the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro handsets. However, Qualcomm may be onto something, as benchmarks have emerged that pit the new Snapdragon chip head-to-head with Apple's.
According to benchmarks spotted by Notebookcheck, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 defeats the A19 Pro in multi-core tests, which puts a CPU under strain by using all of its available processors. The Gen 5 scored 10,401 points, compared to the A19 Pro's 10,105. In single-core testing, the comparisons were minimal, with the Gen 5 scoring 3,831, and the A19 Pro scoring 3,888. In simple terms, that means that the Android phones packing the Elite Gen 5 should run the best mobile games better than the latest premium iPhones, at least in theory.
When it comes to the GPU side of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the results are more surprising. In several 3DMark performance tests, which are another tool to measure how powerful a device is from its graphical capabilities, the Gen 5 usually tops out, once again beating the A19 and A19 Pro chips from Apple.
It's impressive, as it means future devices from brands such as Samsung, OnePlus, RedMagic, and more will be able to take advantage of Qualcomm's new chip, which we're likely to see in the best gaming phones of the next few months. We won't know just how powerful the chip is until we put it through its paces ourselves, but it sounds quite promising.
We're also wondering whether we might see the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the best handheld consoles of the future. Recent devices like the dual-screen Ayaneo Pocket DS and the powerful Ayaneo Pocket S2 all take advantage of different chips to offer impressive performance. Still, it seems like the possibilities could be even more groundbreaking if brands decided to pack a handheld console with the new Snapdragon processor, which is quite an exciting prospect.
With chips from Apple and Qualcomm showcasing how powerful devices can and will be, we're excited to see what the future holds for these handsets and handhelds and which games we'll be playing in the future at full speeds. If you're looking for some top tech you can pick up right away, be sure to check out our guides to the best gaming tablets and the best Android phones while you're here.