Qualcomm began releasing defective Snapdragon 8 Elite

In October, Qualcomm introduced the flagship processor Snapdragon 8 Elite, which received two powerful cores clocked at 4.32 GHz and six efficient cores at 3.53 GHz. Now the company has released a stripped-down version of it with the only difference – it has lost one of the effective cores.

Image source: qualcomm.com

An additional variant of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor received the model index SM8750-3-AB. The company released it, probably so that device manufacturers could produce flagship devices, but at a more modest price. All technical specifications, including processor clock speeds, remain the same.

Qualcomm is not the first to resort to such a solution – last year Apple equipped the seventh-generation iPad mini tablet with a special version of the A17 Pro processor, which lost one graphics core compared to the base version. This strategy allows you to release less powerful versions of your chips without revising the architecture as a whole. In single-core tests, the new Snapdragon 8 Elite will perform no worse than the older one, but in multi-core tests it will show more modest results.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite processor has become a revolutionary product for Qualcomm, but its disadvantage is its high price. Therefore, some of the phone manufacturer partners will probably be happy to sacrifice the device’s performance, and this will only be noticeable in synthetic tests, but will be pleased with a more attractive price. And consumers will have to take a closer look at the characteristics of phones before making purchases.