Ouch, one other Snapdragon 8 Elite handset overheats

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite guarantees large issues for late 2024 and 2025 flagship smartphones. From a brand new customized CPU to unmatched graphics efficiency, images, and enhanced AI capabilities, it’s the chip that claims to do all of it, and, for essentially the most half, it does. Nevertheless, our preliminary impressions of the chip have been tainted by exceedingly excessive temperatures when positioned below stress.

First, the realme GT7 Professional overheated throughout benchmark checks. Even after a patch to deal with a “software program compatibility concern” with 3DMark, the handset nonetheless hit a 47.7°C inner temperature, making for a telephone that’s uncomfortable to carry when operating full tilt. Subsequent, the admirably performing ASUS ROG Cellphone 9 remained cool in its default efficiency mode however noticed appreciable efficiency throttling to maintain these temperatures at a cool 34.9°C. Left unleashed in “X-Mode,” the telephone recorded a scorching 55.8°C (admittedly nearly as sizzling as final 12 months’s mannequin), although its sturdy cool resolution saved efficiency regular. There’s a cause ASUS recommends a cooler accent for longer gaming periods.

Most just lately, I’ve been testing out the brand new HONOR Magic 7 Professional. Whereas operating the telephone by means of 3DMark’s benchmark check, the telephone as soon as once more grew to become unstuck, this time within the demanding Photo voltaic Bay ray-tracing check, shutting down the app as a consequence of overheating. See the warning popup under.

Though Photo voltaic Bay didn’t full, regardless of eight separate makes an attempt, I efficiently ran 3DMark’s two Wild Life stress checks (one thing we initially couldn’t obtain with the realme). As earlier than, temperatures are alarming; Wild Life hit 47.8°C whereas Wild Life Excessive peaked at 50.1°C, full with a discount to simply 46.8% of its preliminary efficiency within the case of the latter. For sure, the telephone was uncomfortably heat by the tip of the runs and wanted a very long time to chill again down.

I’ve been operating these stress checks for a number of generations now, and digging up previous information factors for HONOR’s handsets reveals a transparent enhance in temperatures lately, with a noticeable soar when transferring to the Snapdragon 8 Elite. See the graph under, however observe that we will’t get hold of temperature information for a telephone that doesn’t full the check.

Whereas there are, in fact, variations in design, PCB format, and cooling setups between handset generations, a temperature enhance of between 5-8°C in simply a few years shall be all the way down to the chip, no less than partially. Moreover, processors have benefitted from supposedly extra environment friendly manufacturing nodes lately, which ought to have allowed chips to devour much less energy and, subsequently, run cooler. As a substitute, Qualcomm has put these financial savings in direction of further efficiency, with greater temperatures arising as a substantial facet impact.

This isn’t to single out HONOR; all the Snapdragon 8 Elite handsets we’ve seen to date run hotter (at full tilt) and/or sacrificed extra efficiency in a bid to remain cool than their predecessors. The brand new OnePlus 13 additionally clocks peak temperatures of 45.8°C in stress checks, up from a far cooler 39.3°C on the OnePlus 12. It’s only a query of how far more warmth in comparison with final 12 months. So what does this imply for the chip and handsets powered by it? Is it a dud it is best to keep away from?

First, there’s a distinction between these quite excessive stress check situations and the temperatures you’ll see in real-world situations. I’ve spent some time taking part in actual video games on Snapdragon 8 Elite telephones and haven’t observed the telephones’ floor temperatures get wherever close to as sizzling as the interior numbers recorded right here. These stress checks push telephones above and past extra mainstream functions that don’t require the chip to run at full tilt, so think about them a worst-case end result for temperatures and a best-case end result for efficiency potential.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t recommend this isn’t a trigger for concern. A warmer chip means the telephone’s internals are more likely to run significantly hotter if utilizing the telephone throughout charging, and there’s an elevated threat of efficiency throttling and utility shutdowns when utilizing the telephone in a heat surroundings, reminiscent of navigating on a automotive dashboard. Then, there are future functions to think about. A telephone constructed to final 5 to seven years must deal with apps and video games that may find yourself stressing the telephone’s efficiency capabilities, doubtlessly leading to greater temperatures than we see in right now’s apps. Stress checks symbolize excessive use circumstances by right now’s requirements, however they may be extra mainstream in 4 or 5 12 months’s time.

Maybe worse for the Snapdragon 8 Elite is that there’s a competing product available on the market that gives comparable efficiency with out the excessive temperatures — MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400. We benchmarked the chip and located peak stress check temperatures a superb 3°C to 11°C cooler at their peaks, relying on which handsets you evaluate. See the Discover X8 Professional and vivo X200 Professional within the graph under. Observe that vivo’s cooling resolution isn’t pretty much as good as OPPO’s, and efficiency is scaled again additional to maintain temps cool. Moreover, the Dimensity 9400 runs video games just about in addition to the 8 Elite, which makes you query precisely what’s happening inside Qualcomm’s newest flagship.

I don’t wish to speculate an excessive amount of on the supply of the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s troubles, however there are a few potential ache factors to take a look at with its all-new elements. Though Qualcomm says they’re a ground-up improvement, the customized Pheonix-L and -M CPU cores share their foundations with the Oryon cores within the laptop-grade Snapdragon X platform. Maybe there are some first-gen structure teething troubles holding these cores cool or particular software program optimizations that aren’t all the time adopted, particularly as they’ll hit a colossal 4.32GHz. Qualcomm has additionally beefed up its Adreno GPU with a brand new tri-slice structure — a higher-performing design that would, in principle, scale as much as laptops. As soon as once more, a brand new structure won’t be operating fairly as ideally as the corporate hoped in a confined type issue or would possibly require additional optimization from companions to steadiness appropriately.

Additional investigation is required to see exactly what TDP these elements pull, however based mostly on the warmth output, I guess it’s fairly excessive when operating at full tilt. In any occasion, Qualcomm is clearly pushing the efficiency envelope with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, however that’s come on the expense of upper temperatures which are inflicting some handsets to fail checks that haven’t troubled earlier fashions. On the similar time, realizing these excessive benchmark ends in precise functions shouldn’t be essentially possible — you actually don’t want an 8 Elite to run the preferred Android video games, for instance.

On the plus facet, the Snapdragon 8 Elite appears to supply sturdy efficiency with out further battery drain and is, in lots of cases, truly a extra frugal chip than its predecessor. Temperature is simply a part of the story, however they’re positively one thing to think about when eying up a next-gen buy. Operating at full tilt, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is undeniably a sizzling chip.