Qualcomm and MediaTek are the two giants in the mobile chip industry. If you’re fixated on how much power the next smartphones are going to put in the palm of your hand, then October is certainly the month for you. MediaTek has already shown off its exceptional Dimensity 9400 and Qualcomm is expected to make its next chip official too.
Whether it’ll be called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 or the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm’s next chip is going to be one hot product. Unfortunately, by that, I don’t mean it’s going to be in intense demand but that it is going to be physically hot. It’s like the Snapdragon 810 all over again.
Qualcomm’s Upcoming Chip Gets Close To Boiling Water, Just From Normal Usage Patterns
A few days ago, MediaTek showed its hand, unveiling the Dimensity 9400, its newest flagship chip. There was a lot of attention paid, not just because it is the highest-end chip currently available—and will take MediaTek through most of 2025—but because the race between MediaTek and Qualcomm is the closest it’s ever been. Now, we’re waiting to see what the Snapdragon 8 Elite is going to bring when it is shown later this month.
According to an image provided by a user on the Chinese Baidu forums, we know about the thermals we can expect from Qualcomm’s big bad chip and it’s not looking good. In just normal usage, the chip was recorded hitting a temperature of 209.3°F (98.5°C). That’s nearly hot enough to boil water!
Chips hardly run that hot under load or a stress test, talk less of normal usage. That’s extremely concerning. However, one thing that is excessively important to keep in mind is that this report was on a version of the new Snapdragon chip from three months ago. In that time, Qualcomm could have run some pretty aggressive optimizations to make sure that temperatures like that are far from achievable in the final release of the SoC.
That Much Heat Wouldn’t Be Surprising; The Snapdragon 8 Elite Will Be Very Powerful
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite could be the hottest chip of 2025, but that could potentially be for good reason. The chip is expected to be insanely powerful, with a maximum clock speed of 4.09GHz. That’s crazy. Even more insane is that the exclusive “For Galaxy” model expected for the S25 family could reach as high as 4.47GHz. I never dreamed smartphones would reach clock speeds that bonkers.
The same user who leaked the thermals also says that at its peak, the chip draws as much as 20W of power—that part will have an ill effect on how long you can expect your battery to stay alive—which sort of makes sense when you consider the rumored clock speeds.
By the end of October, there’ll be a war raging between MediaTek and Qualcomm. While the former has already played its cards, we await the official details of Qualcomm’s offering, and subsequently, the devices that will give us real-world statistics after everything.
