A chip that hits 5GHz should be blowing the doors off benchmarks. So why is Qualcomm’s next flagship processor getting beaten by the chip it’s supposed to replace? That’s the awkward question sitting at the center of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6’s first Geekbench appearance, and the answer is a little more nuanced than the raw numbers suggest.
As reported by Gizmochina, the chip showed up on Geekbench 6.7 inside a prototype iQOO 16 carrying the model number V2606A. The scores? A single-core result of 3,434 and a multi-core result of 9,334. Compare that to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 inside the iQOO 15, which pulled 3,649 in single-core and 10,682 in multi-core. That means the newer, supposedly more powerful chip is actually trailing its predecessor in both tests. Not a great look on the surface.
But here’s what makes this weird. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 (listed under the identifier SM8975 in the benchmark) has two prime cores clocked at a genuinely staggering 5.01GHz. That’s the first time any smartphone processor has hit desktop-level clock speeds. For comparison, MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro tops out at 4.55GHz. The three performance cores run at 4.03GHz, the three efficiency cores sit at 3.74GHz, and the whole thing is built on TSMC’s 2nm N2P process with a 2+3+3 core layout. Graphics come from the new Adreno 850 GPU. On paper, this thing should be a monster.
So what’s going on? The most likely explanation is that this benchmark came from an engineering sample, not a finished retail device. Early prototypes typically run pre-release software with unoptimized power management, and both of those factors can seriously drag scores down before the chip is ready for real-world use. It’s a well-known issue with early benchmark leaks, and it’s bitten expectations before.
The bigger clue is that this same chip recently posted an AnTuTu score above 4.8 million points. That’s a strong result by any measure, which makes the weak Geekbench numbers look more like a software hiccup than a sign that something is fundamentally wrong with the hardware. The two benchmark pictures simply don’t match up, and when they don’t, it usually points to a testing environment issue rather than a chip problem.
Still, this matters because the pressure on Qualcomm is real. MediaTek has been pushing hard with the Dimensity line, and every generation the gap between the two narrows a little more. Qualcomm needs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 to be a clear step forward, especially as it preps for what looks like a September 22 launch window. A flagship chip that barely edges past last year’s model in real-world performance would be a problem, clock speed bragging rights or not.
The 5GHz milestone is genuinely exciting as a technical achievement. But hitting a high clock speed means nothing if the surrounding software and architecture can’t turn that speed into actual performance gains. Right now, based on this one early test, the jury is still very much out. Check back once a retail unit hits the test bench.