Qualcomm SD8 Elite for Galaxy versus SD 8 Elite for others

The Qualcomm SD8 Elite for Galaxy powers the Samsung Galaxy S25 Series. We set out to discover how this system-on-a-chip (SoC) differs from the standard SD8 Elite used by other makers.

This is not the first time Samsung has claimed that its Qualcomm SoC for Galaxy is superior. It did for the S24-series, but that was a small frequency overclock and not much more. As this is commercial in confidence, neither Samsung nor Qualcomm can comment.

Qualcomm SD8 Elite SM8750-AB – non-Galaxy model

The full details are now on its site. Here is a summary (all performance increases are in comparison to SD8 Gen 3).

CPUQualcomm Oryon 2 x 4.32GHz & 6 x 3.53Ghz, 2 x 12MB L2 cache and 8MB SLC L3 cache Claimed 45% single and multi-core performance increase
Process3nm from TSMC Claimed 44% improved power efficiency
GPUAdreno 830 three-core 1.1GHz 12MB RAM Nanite virtualised geometry system and Unreal Engine 5.3 HDR 10-but gaming Playback codecs: HDR10+, HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision Claimed 40% faster, 40% more energy efficient and 35% more ray tracing performance
NPUHexagon 45% faster
Improved performance per watt
Multimodal Gen AI support
Up to 70 tokens on SLMS
Sensing HubUnderstand personal context that allows a multimodal generative AI assistant to make suggestions and decisions that suit you best.
DisplaySupport up to QHD+ 1-240Hz
ISPSpectra Image Signal Processor is now part of Hexagon for improved HDR, more natural skin tones, sky colours, autofocus, AI Face detection AI ISP, Triple 18-bit ISP 3-sensor HDR video capture (at the same time)
Continued
ModemX80 5G and Fast Connect 7900 6nm chip Qualcomm 5G AI Suite Gen 3 DSDA – dual SIM, dual active for dual data or voice and data. 6x downlink carrier aggregation up to 10/3.5Gbps DL/UL. Sub-6Ghz 4 x 6 MIMO Smart Transmit Gen 5 technology with Snapdragon Satellite support
CommsWi-Fi 7 5800Mbps (in the US) using MLO BT 6 Ultra-wideband
GPSConcurrent GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, NavIC Triple frequency GNSS (L1/L2C/L5) Certified for Global freeway lane-level vehicle navigation and Urban pedestrian navigation with sidewalk accuracy
RAM/StorageLPDDR5X @ 5.3GHz up to 24GB UFS 4.0
Sound24-bit/96kHz lossless Studio Quality audio Snapdragon aptX suite Spatial audio
SecurityYes
Camera4.3 GP/s processing direct Hexagon Link Limitless segmentation AI Relighting AI Pet suite Video Magic Eraser Truepic with C2PA cryptographic seals to authenticate photos as real and not AI-generated
USB3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps with full audio, video, data and charge support QC 5.0 quick charge

What is the difference?

At this time, we don’t have access to a full suite of tests. The SD8 Elite (not Galaxy) preliminary tests at NotebookCheck show:

  • Geekbench single/multi-core: 3089/9404 behind Apple M4 10 core at 3752/15601
  • Antutu V10 591778 (Apple 743583)
  • PC Mark Android 100.8 (MediaTek Dimensity 9300 136.2)

There is a 7-core version SM8750-3-AB as well that may become a value version.

Update:

Geekbench is starting to show the S25 Ultra SD8 Elite for Galaxy single/multi-core tests averaging 3093/9793. This indicates that the two performance cores are slightly overclocked to 4.47Ghz. Of course, these are figures from pre-production units, so let’s wait and see.

Remember that the S25 Ultra (SM-S938) has a larger heatsink, which would explain the lower results from the S25 (SM-S931) and S25+ (SM-S936).

CyberShack has a guide to Qualcomm SD8 Elite for Galaxy versus SD 8 Elite.

CyberShack has an AI overview of What is Samsung Galaxy S25 AI all about?

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