GoKawiilNick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR A trusted leaker reports that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Gen 6 Pro will have a GPU with six slices.
Qualcomm’s previous Elite chips have GPUs with three slices, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 GPU has just two slices.
This leak therefore suggests that the new chips could bring major graphical gains.
Qualcomm will hold its annual Snapdragon Summit next month, and it’s expected to unveil the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro. The Pro chip in particular is rumored to be very expensive, but a new leak suggests we could be in for a major gaming upgrade.
Leaker Digital Chat Station has claimed on Weibo that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series GPUs have six slices. This suggests a massive GPU upgrade for next-generation Snapdragon chips. Check out the machine-translated screenshot below.
Every Snapdragon flagship processor since the Snapdragon 8 Elite uses a so-called sliced GPU architecture. This sees the GPU’s shader cores and other fixed-function hardware blocks divided into slices. This approach allows the chipset to dynamically set the frequency for each GPU slice as needed, rather than running the entire GPU at a high clock speed. This should result in better performance, load-balancing, and power efficiency.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 have three GPU slices, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 has just two slices. So it stands to reason that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series could see huge performance and efficiency gains with the switch to six slices.
Double the slices doesn’t necessarily mean double the performance, as other factors like clock speed, cache, and more will also have a significant influence. For example, Qualcomm could opt for more slices but a reduced clock speed. Nevertheless, it looks like mobile gamers should keep an eye on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro.
Unfortunately, numerous leaks point to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro seeing a big price hike over the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. So you might have to splash out a ton of cash if you want a phone with this processor.
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