Samsung's next Galaxy XR could be ultimate 'Elite' headset – as new chip revealed

Samsung Galaxy XR worn by woman at New York media event – October 2025 — (Image credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Quick Summary

Wave goodbye to Qualcomm's older naming convention for extended reality (XR) chipsets, as the previous Snapdragon 'XR2+ Gen 2' steps aside for the new, top-tier Snapdragon Reality Elite.

With graphics and compute power increases over the previous generation – up to 60% and 45% at the same power consumption – the new chipset promises cooler operation and better battery longevity potential.

As Samsung uses the previous top chip in its current Galaxy XR headset, there's a chance that its yet-to-be-announced future replacement could embody the new Elite chip. Right now, however, the first confirmed product is XReal's Project Aura.

To paraphrase Chris Martin: we live in an augmented world. But don't panic: the rise of virtual reality (VR) and proliferation into new markets – from augmented reality (AR) to mixed reality (MR) – has seen stacks of powerful products appear.

Those which don't rely on being tethered to a separate PC, such as Samsung's Galaxy XR headset, depend on capable chipsets within, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip used within that very product. Quite the mouthful of a name, right?

No longer! Qualcomm has revealed at AWE 2026 – that's the Augmented World Expo, so a perfect place for the reveal – that it's incoming top-tier chipset is called the Snapdragon Reality Elite.

More power

Qualcomm reckons the Snapdragon Reality Elite can deliver graphics (GPU) performance with up to a 60% performance increase at the same power level as the previous chipset.

Compute (CPU), meanwhile, is quoted as up to a 45% increase – also at the same power level as the outgoing chipset.

Better battery

Those are big figures, of course, but it's actually the 'same power' part that's important.

Imagine when running at lower demands, the saving to processing could yield greater battery life as a result.

Qualcomm doesn't make batteries, granted, but it's the number one bugbear of consumer tech products – and using less power ought to mean greater use per charge.

Sharper visuals

Augmented and mixed reality depend on virtual overlays to the real world, requiring a video see-through (VST) processing pipeline.

Beyond resolution of a product's display, the Elite chipset has improved latency, resulting in cleaner, sharper image potential.

Improved foveated processing – a technique that, like the human eye, focuses most detail front and centre, with peripheral areas utilising less detail – from the image-signal-processor also ought to help with directing workloads for better visuals.

Smaller devices – greater comfort

While a chipset is obviously a tiny part of a product – and they're only getting smaller – Qualcomm has spent a lot of time redesigning the thermal output of this platform.

Less heat means less space required for dissipation, thus future products could be even smaller – as well as literally cooler.

That can only mean greater comfort potential, especially where the thermals are concerned, with no unnecessary brow sweats.

Lower latency

The Elite chip also improves the visual analytics engine, which is important for three-dimensional depth estimation, tracking of objects and the user's head position.

Lower latency in those processes will mean a subtle but tangible improvement in connectivity between the real and virtual worlds.

Which devices will feature it?

This brand new chip has only just been revealed – with XReal's Project Aura the only confirmed product to feature the hardware.

No doubt there'll be more to come and, who knows, perhaps a future Samsung XR headset update will take benefit of the feature improvements.

Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 15 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.