Upcoming high-end Qualcomm SoC outed as the SM8325; a Snapdragon 888 without a 5G modem

Android OEMs already have the Snapdragon 870 and Snapdragon 888 to choose from when creating a flagship smartphone this year, but Qualcomm is reportedly planning to introduce a third high-end chipset for 2021. According to Roland Quandt, Qualcomm is also developing the SM8325 and may pitch it as a cheaper alternative to the Snapdragon 888.

Apparently, Qualcomm will distinguish the SM8325 from the Snapdragon 888 (SM8350) by offering the former without an integrated 5G modem. It is unclear what Qualcomm will market the SM8325 as, but we would expect the company to build it on a 5 nm node and offer a comparable feature-set to the Snapdragon 888. We would not be surprised if the SM8325 is also a cut-down Snapdragon 888 in other respects, such as with lower CPU and GPU clock speeds.

In short, the SM8325 should sit between the Snapdragon 870 and the Snapdragon 888 in Qualcomm's product stack. The names Snapdragon 880 or Snapdragon 885 would seem suitable for the SM8325, but we are only speculating here. Undoubtedly, we will hear more about the SM8325 before its release later this year.