The return of a new 7-core Snapdragon 8 series chipset is upon us. For the time being, Qualcomm has not made any official announcement just yet. However, early signs that Qualcomm has developed a lesser version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 have emerged on Geekbench.

To recap, Qualcomm created an equivalent version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite last year, too. In short, this 7-core variant performed well and helped the Find N5 achieve excellent runtimes in our tests. Only Oppo adopted this variant though, with the Galaxy Z Fold7 featuring an 8-core variant branded as the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy instead (curr. $1,050 – refurbished on Amazon). Now, the Find N6 has become the first device with a 7-core version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Like its effective predecessor, this new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant drops a performance core to reach 7 cores overall while maintaining 3.6 GHz clock speeds. Likewise, 4.6 GHz clock speeds remain on its Prime cores. As a result, single-core performance for this new variant falls in line with what we have come to expect from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Still, a score of 3,524 would put the 7-core variant second bottom in our Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 database just ahead of the OnePlus 15.

GPU performance is unaffected too with an OpenCL score of 24,103. Incidentally, this score would see the 7-core variant finish near the top among the Poco F8 Ultra and RedMagic 11 Pro. Multi-core performance suffers, though. Based on our benchmarks, this 7-core variant trails its 8-core sibling by around 17% in Geekbench 6.5 multi-core.

As a result, this 7-core variant scores about the same as the 8-core version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 variant outscores its 7-core predecessor by around 10%, though. Currently, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 7-core variant is expected to land on March 17 when Oppo presents the Find N6 globally. Whether other Android OEMs adopt this variant instead of the 8-core option remains to be seen at this stage.

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Alex Alderson – Senior Tech Writer – 14242 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2018

Prior to writing and translating for Notebookcheck, I worked for various companies including Apple and Neowin. I have a BA in International History and Politics from the University of Leeds, which I have since converted to a Law Degree. Happy to chat on Twitter or Notebookchat.