The Snapdragon 8 Elite’s new name is a big deal. But does it really matter?

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit is happening right now, and during the big opening keynote, Qualcomm revealed the next major chip for premium Android flagships in 2025: the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Wait, what happened to Snapdragon 8 Gen 4? That’s what we were all expecting, given the simple name that Qualcomm’s been using for the past several years with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Gen 2, Gen 1, and so forth.

But no, Qualcomm decided the new chip needed a new name to really show how much of an upgrade the Snapdragon 8 Elite is compared to previous generations. This also makes the smartphone chips match up with the company’s Snapdragon X Elite laptop chipsets. With a little bit of context, it starts to make some sense.

However, does anyone who isn’t a tech enthusiast know the name of the processors that are in their smartphones? Does the name really matter?

What’s in a name?
Qualcomm
Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek Dimensity, Samsung Exynos, Google Tensor, Apple A18, Apple M4. To a normal person, someone who doesn’t follow tech news every day, would they know what any of those words mean? I will confidently say, probably not.

These days, everyone pretty much has a smartphone of some kind, whether it’s an iPhone or some kind of Android phone. But ask them what processor or chip it has, and most people will likely give you a blank stare. Unless you are a techie, people just don’t really care about processors and benchmarks — the only thing that matters is whether the phone will work well enough for what they need it for.

While saying Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is a bit of a mouthful, it made the most sense logistically. It was easy to tell which was the newest version since it was in numerical order. But then Qualcomm made things a bit more complicated by branching the Snapdragon 8 series into Plus and “s” variations — most recently with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 announced earlier this year.

Qualcomm
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a new rebrand of the flagship chip, with a name that supposedly matches the performance. When Qualcomm showed off the chip, it stated that it has zero efficiency cores. Instead, the Snapdragon 8 Elite will have six performance cores and two prime cores. For some extra context, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has five performance cores, two efficiency cores, and one prime core — and the prime core delivers more horsepower than the performance cores.

With the prime cores going up to 4.32GHz and the performance cores clocked at 3.53GHz (the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 only got up to 3.2GHz), the Snapdragon 8 Elite should deliver 45% better overall CPU performance and 44% better efficiency.

So, yes, though this rebranding of the Snapdragon 8 does make sense when you look at the performance, was it actually necessary? After all, most people already don’t know the exact names of the chips that their pocket computers have, so does it really matter? Probably not. It’s just a marketing tactic for Qualcomm to use in its press releases, and beyond us tech journalists and bloggers covering the news this week, the chances are slim to none of “normal” people caring or knowing about it at all.

This isn’t Qualcomm’s first rebranding rodeo
Qualcomm
Rebranding Snapdragon 8 Gen to Snapdragon 8 Elite isn’t the first time that Qualcomm has changed things up. In fact, Qualcomm just rebranded the Snapdragon chip name back in 2021, going from various digits (i.e. Snapdragon 888, 870, 480, etc.) to generation numbers. As such, it’s a bit surprising to see Qualcomm rebrand it yet again after just three years.

It will be interesting to see what Qualcomm does with its premium flagship chip next year. Will it be “Snapdragon 8 Elite 2” or something similar? Or will it have a new word instead of Elite? Will Qualcomm’s next chip be another monumental leap that it decides to do another major rebrand? At this point, we don’t really know.

Rebranding to Snapdragon 8 Elite makes sense from a certain perspective. At least it is simple, unlike something like Asus ROG Strix XG27AQDMG. But in the end, does anyone really care about the name of the chipset in their smartphone? So long as it’s fast and efficient, that’s all that really matters. And thankfully for Qualcomm, it seems like the Snapdragon 8 Elite has that in spades. It looks like a very good chip; just one with an odd name that — for most people — ultimately doesn’t matter.