Xiaomi 17 preview: Could Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 give Apple something to worry about?
The Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Pro (starting at about $729 via direct import) are amongst the first smartphones to launch with the brand-new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Qualcomm's latest SoC is possibly the fastest processor available for Android phones. Check out this official Qualcomm article to learn why the company adopted the “Gen 5” branding for the immediate successor to the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Qualcomm chipset delivers incredible multi-core performance
Manufactured using TSMC’s advanced 3-nm process technology, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 combines two blazingly fast Oryon Prime cores and six Oryon Performance cores – just like its predecessor. The Prime cores can achieve clock speeds of up to 4.6 GHz, whilst the Performance cores top out at 3.62 GHz. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is also the first to include Adreno High Performance Memory (HPM), which provides 18 MB of dedicated memory.
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| Quantized NPU 1.5 | |
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| Quantized TensorFlow NNAPI 1.2 | |
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| Single Precision TensorFlow NNAPI 1.2 | |
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| Half Precision NPU 1.5 | |
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| Single Precision NPU 1.5 | |
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| AImark - Score v3.x | |
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According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 offers up to 20% more CPU power than the original Snapdragon 8 Elite. We used Geekbench 6 in our benchmark suite to verify this claim.
In this benchmark, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 inside both the Xiaomi 17 and 17 Pro delivered excellent results, comparable to an Apple A19 Pro. Whilst the Snapdragon processor scored slightly higher in the multi-core test, the Xiaomi flagships showed marginally lower single-core performance than an iPhone 17 Pro.
Nowadays, new SoCs are practically expected to come with native AI acceleration. Qualcomm claims the Hexagon NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 delivers up to 37% more AI performance. That said, the chip still underperformed Apple’s new SoC by a considerable margin in AIMark – at least based on the Chinese version found in our review units.
The story shifts significantly when it comes to the integrated GPU. Stay tuned for our upcoming in-depth Xiaomi 17 review to find out how the new Adreno 840 fares in our graphics benchmarks and gaming tests.
Source(s)
Xiaomi 17 review
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