As you know Qualcomm recently at its annual Tech summit in Hawaiintroduced the Snapdragon 865 chipset along with discreet X55 5G modem. The chipmaker’s new crown jewel is all set to become the buzz word of 2020 as top Android smartphone brands are lining up to introduce in their upcoming flagships. The new SoC boasts a noticeable gain over the older Snapdragon 855/855+ chips with new features like LPDDR5 RAM support, ISP that could handle 200MP sensors, 8K230fps, endless 720@960fps slow-motion capture, and lot more.
Now that the Snapdragon 865 details are out, its that time of the year when most of us try to compare Qualcomm’s best Snapdragon SoC with latest chipsets from the likes of Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and MediaTek. So, the obvious question we like to ask is – which one’s better?
Let’s try and find that answer in this comparison down below. Let’s cut to the chase and see the clash of chipsets.
Snapdragon 865 vs Apple A13 Bionic vs Kirin 990 vs Exynos 990 vs MediaTek Dimensity 1000
Models |
Apple A13 Bionic | ||||
Core | Octa-core 1x 2.84GHz Kryo 885 (Cortex A77)3x 2.42GHz (Cortex A77) 4x 1.8GHz (Cortex A55/Efficiency cores) | Hexa-core 2x 2.65GHz (Lightning /Performance) 4x 1.8GHz (Thunder/ Efficiency) | Octa-core 2 x 2.86GHz (Cortex A76)2x 2.36GHz (Cortex A76) 4x 1.95GHz (Cortex A55) | Octa-core 2x Exynos M5 (20-percent performance boost) 2x Cortex A76 4x Cortex A55 | Octa-core 4x Cortex A77 at 2.6GHz; 4x Cortex A55 at 2.0GHz |
Fabrication Process |
7nm |
7nm+ |
7NM+ |
7nm |
7nm |
GPU |
Adreno 650 @587MHz |
Custom quad-core |
Mali-G76 MP16, @700MHz |
Mali-G77 MP11 |
Mali-G77 MC9 |
Supported RAM (up to) |
LPDDR5@ 2750MHz |
LPDDR4X |
LPDDR4-4266 |
LPDDR5 @ 2750MHz |
4x 16b LPDDR4x |
Modem | Qualcomm X55 5G Modem Discreet 7.5 Gbps Peak Download; 3 Gbps Peak Upload | Intel’s XMM 7660 LTE Modem 1.6Gbps Peak Download 225Mbps Peak Upload |
Integrated Balong 5G up to 2.3 Gbps download 1.25 Gbps upload |
Exynos 5123 Discrete |
Integrated 5G Sub-6 DL = 4600Mbps; UL = 2500Mbps |
WiFi-6 ready |
Yes |
Yes |
NA |
NA |
Yes |
ISP | Spectra 480; Up to 200 MP |
Custom-designed Image Processor; Computational photography | ISP 5.0 Block-matching and 3D filtering for noise reduction | Single: up to 108MP Dual:up to 24.8MP | 80MP/ 32MP + 16MP 5-core ISP |
AI | Hexagon 698 15 TOPs | octa-core Neural Engine | 2 + 1 Da Vinci | Dual NPU + DSP >10 TOPs |
APU 3.0 + 4.5 TOPS performance |
Video | 8K HDR @30fps 4K HDR @120fps 720p@960fps | 4K HDR @60fps 1080p@240fps | 2160p@30/60fps 1080p@960fps 720p@7680fps | 8K HDR at 30fps 4K HDR at 120fps |
4K60 with multi-exposure |
Apart from Apple’s A13 Bionic chipset and Kirin 990 others are yet to become available in retail market. Therefore, here we have to bank on whatever available in public. Let’s start with the iPhone 11 series launch event where Apple bragged the A13 Bionic to be the one with the world’s fastest CPU and GPU.
The on-stage presentation highlighted a huge gap between its A13 Bionic and the competition. Apple’s presentation claimed the A13 to be about 50% better than the Snapdragon 855 SoC and roughly around 35% better than the 855+ edition.
ALSO READ: Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and 765G with integrated 5G Modem launched
Although Qualcomm cites a 25% gain over SD855 on both performance and power efficiency fronts, it’s still bested by A13.
Well, if Geekbench scores of A13 Bionic, Kirin 990 and so-called Snapdragon 865 (posted by IceUniverse) are anything to go by the Apple’s chip seems superior in single-core performance while the multi-core performance is almost neck-to-neck.
From the looks of it, Apple still does better in CPU and GPU scores. But, it’s too early to comment on the real-world performance for obvious reasons. Once phones running on Snapdragon 865 hits the market, we could compare them with the Apple handsets.
ALSO READ: Snapdragon 865 does not have an integrated 5G modem: Here’s why
Furthermore, the competition, especially Qualcomm seems to have plunged ahead in areas like video capabilities, imaging, LPDDR5 RAM and 5G support. Agreed, we still have time until the mainstream expansion of 5G, but a little bit of future-proofing is good to have.
Brand New Samsung Exynose Chip 👑