According to prolific leaker Digital Chat Station on Weibo, Qualcomm is working on a new iteration of its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC to be launched later this year. This will reportedly carry the model number SM8850-1-AB, and will have very similar Geekbench 6 scores to the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
Digital Chat Station says it will be used in devices costing under CNY 4,000, which is $590 at the current exchange rate. That implies it will be cheaper than the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which has the model number SM8850-AC.
For reference, there are already three versions of this chipset available. Aside from the standard model, there is also the SM8850-5-AC, which features a seven-core CPU instead of an octa-core, and is used in Oppo’s Find N6. The SM8850-1-AD is the variant Samsung uses in its Galaxy S26 family and Galaxy Z Fold8 series.
The new SM8850-1-AB would therefore be the fourth iteration of the chip. It will be interesting to see which flagship-killer devices opt for this variant rather than making the jump to the presumably much more expensive Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6.
Source (in Chinese)
