Snapdragon 8 Elite Realme GT7 Pro Performance Study

The Snapdragon 8 Elite represents new hope in the mobile space – it’s the first chipset in a long time to have dedicated CPU cores (and not come from Apple). The GPU is also completely custom-made and belongs to the new generation. And Qualcomm has found a way to significantly increase clock speeds than any other smartphone chipset. Everything looks great on paper, let’s see if reality lives up to expectations.

Here we will focus on comparing the 8 Elite with the two previous generations of the Snapdragon 8 series. We’re working on a separate article pitting the Elite against its main competitor, the Dimensity 9400.

For this test, we will be using the Realme GT7 Pro.

We’ll be using the Realme GT7 Pro for our first round of Snapdragon 8 Elite tests. As mentioned above, we have selected several Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 8 Gen 2 phones for comparison. Some of them are gaming phones, so they should offer the best possible performance among older chipsets. To this end, it should be noted that for these tests we put the phone in GT mode (i.e. high performance mode).

Let’s look at the processor first, since this is the biggest change in this generation. It uses Oryon cores, two versions of them – two Prime cores and six Performance cores. These are not Cortex cores, as in MediaTek and Samsung chipsets, but Qualcomm’s own development. Note that these are not the same Oryon cores that we saw in the Snapdragon X Elite in laptops, but the second generation.

2 Oryon Prime Cores @ 4.32 GHz + 6 Oryon High Performance Cores

The Prime’s dual cores clock at up to 4.32GHz, which is insane speed for a handheld device. Earlier this year, the Apple A18 Pro broke the 4GHz barrier, but only just barely – it clocks up to 4.05GHz. The Cortex-X925 Dimensity 9400 remains below 4 GHz and clocks at 3.63 GHz. Excluding laptops, the highest clock speed you can find on a mobile device is the Apple M4 in iPad Pro (2024) tablets at 4.4 GHz. But keep in mind that these are 11-inch and 13-inch tablets, and it’s much easier to keep them cool.

Looking at Geekbench 6, the phones are neatly grouped by generation. The 8 Elite boasts a massive 31% boost in multi-core performance over the top 8 Gen 3 results – and that’s thanks to gaming phones in Max Effort mode and the overclocked “Galaxy-ready” chip in the S24 Ultra.

If we return to the single-core test, the high frequency of the Oryon Prime cores should appear here. And it shines, beating top competitors by 36%. Looking back to another generation, the Oryon is twice as fast as some 8th Gen 2 phones (Cortex-X3 Prime core) or only 52% faster than the best 8th Gen 2 phone in maximum performance mode.

Next, let’s look at the graphics. Adreno 830 is built on a new architecture using a slice design with dedicated memory for each slice. The 830 has three of these slices clocked at up to 1.1 GHz.

Three GPU slices up to 1.1 GHz, plus dedicated memory

Again, the generation gap is quite clear. The 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test (running at 2160p) showed a score 21% higher than the best score we saw from the Adreno 750 on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Returning to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the difference is a staggering 68%.

8 Elite features the latest version of hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The technology is gaining traction on mobile devices after first appearing on desktop computers. The two-year-old 8 Gen 2 GPU only manages half the points of the new Elite chip. The difference from the 8 Gen 3 is a modest 26%, but it’s still an impressive improvement for the generation.

Finally, AnTuTu attempts to combine CPU, GPU, memory, and other tests into a single score that reflects overall performance. Considering all this, the variability becomes much greater: a well-specced 8 Gen 2 phone can come close to a less-performing 8 Gen 3 phone. But here too, the Snapdragon 8 Elite – or rather the Realme GT7 Pro that houses it – is ahead by some margin older models (about 25%).

This is not the end of this story, but only the first chapter. We still have a few more tests to run, including the all-important test of sustained performance. We also need to run tests with GT mode disabled (we ran several tests and the phone didn’t lose much performance).

We also encountered some issues during testing, but this may just be due to developmental issues: the full reveal of the Realme GT7 Pro is scheduled for November 4, although the company has already confirmed some details and is even allowing us to run some tests on a review unit. in our office.