Qualcomm simply cannot agree on a name for its flagship processors. The company may have moved things around once more after rebranding its top-tier chip earlier this year as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, making things even more confusing.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 of next year will reportedly be available in two versions: a standard model and a Pro model, according to a new leak from Digital Chat Station, a reputable tipter on Weibo.
As a result, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro will technically be the actual successor to the current 8 Elite Gen 5, while the non-Pro version will likely be a slightly less powerful model that retains most of the same features.
The confusion begins to (sort of) make sense when you trace Qualcomm’s naming history. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 marked the beginning of the company’s new convention in 2022.
Typically, the 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3 followed. But in 2024, Qualcomm decided to rename its flagship line to Snapdragon 8 Elite, only to tweak it again in 2025 to Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
Even worse, Qualcomm intends to continue marketing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 as a sub-flagship chip at some point this year. And now, adding a “Pro” to the flagship lineup just makes the whole thing even murkier.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 / Pro specs
Both of the upcoming chips are said to be made using TSMC’s N2P process and to feature Qualcomm’s third-generation custom CPU architecture with two, three, and three cores.
The leak suggests that the GPU capabilities of the two versions will be the primary difference, and that only the Pro version will likely support LPDDR6 memory.
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