Android Authority's C Scott Brown posed this question to Snapdragon 8 Elite project lead Shahin Farahani:

In other words, Farahani suggests there's still scope for even higher peak performance and clock speeds but that Qualcomm has chosen to optimize for battery life and sustained performance. That's not a surprise as all smartphone chipmakers have to strike a fine balance between peak performance, sustained performance, and battery life.

Nevertheless, Qualcomm has offered higher-clocked versions of its flagship chips in the last couple of years, namely the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chips. These overclocked chips were initially exclusive to Samsung before being released to other OEMs later. So don't be surprised to see a faster Snapdragon 8 Elite chip in 2025.