Which flagship processor will dominate in 2021? Today we’re taking a look at a direct comparison of two rivals: Exynos 1080 vs Snapdragon 888. But last year’s Snapdragon 865 will also play a role, as it powers many flagship smartphones and is therefore the ideal example for comparing two generations.
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Samsung Exynos 1080 vs. Snapdragon 888: Technical specifications
For Android flagship devices, only three chipsets made with the latest 5 nm technology are currently available. These are Kirin 9000 from Huawei, Exynos 1080 from Samsung, and Snapdragon 888 from Qualcomm. In today’s article, we’ll compare the last two.
| Processor | Exynos 1080 | Snapdragon 888 |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 5 nm | 5 nm |
| CPU | 1 x ARM Cortex-A78 (2.84 GHz) 3x ARM Cortex-A78 (2.6 GHz) 4x ARM Cortex A-55 (2.0 GHz) |
1 x ARM Cortex-X1 (2.84 GHz) 3 x ARM Cortex-A78 (2.40 GHz) 4 x ARM Cortex-A55 (1.8 GHz) |
| GPU | Mali-G78 MP10 | Adreno 660 |
| ISP | – | Spectra™ 580 |
| AI | – | Hexagon 780 |
| Modem | – | Snapdragon X60 5G |
| Connectivity | W-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 | Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 |
CPU
The new Samsung Exynos 1080 chip delivers a significant performance leap compared to its much-criticized predecessor, Exynos 980. It offers eight cores: four Cortex-A78 cores and four Cortex-A55 cores.
Exynos not only has a higher core clock speed for A78 cores, but it also includes one additional A78 core compared to the Qualcomm-made processor. Samsung also runs higher clocks on the A55 cores.
However, Snapdragon 888 takes the lead thanks to its primary core—Cortex-X1 with a clock of 2,84 GHz. According to available information, Cortex-X1 brings up to 30% performance improvement over Cortex-A77, while Cortex-A78 delivers a 20% performance gain over type A77.
From this, we can infer that the Cortex-X1 primary core provides around a 78% performance boost compared to the Cortex-A10 type. A real comparison, though, will only be revealed by benchmark tests—such as those from AnTuTu.
AnTuTu performance tests
AnTuTu testing has already been carried out for the Vivo X60 Pro smartphone, which uses an Exynos 1080 processor. This phone scored 634 373 points, and it’s not the highest score recorded in AnTuTu for this chip. Still, it’s a fairly reliable result from a commercially available smartphone.
According to published results, Vivo X60 Pro beats nearly all devices powered by the older Snapdragon 865 flagship processor from Qualcomm.
In the photo above, you can view a comparison of the Vivo X60 Pro and Vivo NEX 3S 5G smartphone pair (Exynos 1080 vs. Snapdragon 865). Despite the higher score of the X60 Pro model, when testing the CPU itself it scores a bit lower than the NEX 3S 5G model.
As a result of this comparison, it remains true that even though Exynos 1080 doesn’t beat Snapdragon 865 in CPU performance, it clearly can’t match the new Snapdragon 888 model. That one has a score known from the Mi 11 smartphone (CPU scores 196 334 points), which leaves a margin of roughly 15 thousand points.
GPU
CPU testing was relatively well-balanced despite all the doubts—where the difference starts to show is in the graphics accelerator (GPU). Here, we compare not only Mali-G78 MP10 (Exynos 1080) vs. Adreno 650 (Snapdragon 865), but also Adreno 660 (Snapdragon 888).
From available sources, we know that compared to last year’s Snapdragon 865 processor, the new Exynos 1080 is also leading in GPU performance. But how does the new Snapdragon 888 with the Adreno 660 graphics chip perform?
Qualcomm released a video showing that the new processor’s graphics unit achieved up to 319 439 points in performance benchmarks. For comparison, though, we’ll use the GPU result from a commercially available smartphone (Xiaomi Mi 11), whose GPU results maxed out at 306 548 points.
Even so, we have to say that the Mali-G78 MP10 graphics unit, which is part of the Exynos 1080 chip, falls well behind and scored only 239 408 points in performance tests. For the Kirin 9000 model, though, it’s already just a tight advantage over the Snapdragon 888 processor. The reason could be the number of cores—Kirin has up to 24, while Exynos has only 10.
Artificial intelligence
Samsung claims that its new Exynos 1080 features a powerful Neural Processing Unit (NPU), but it doesn’t specify how much performance it delivers compared to previous information.
We don’t have a direct AI benchmark comparison for this new pair of processors yet. However, the Snapdragon 888 challenger will likely be outmatched until the next processor generation, labeled Exynos.
Final verdict: Samsung Exynos 1080 vs. Snapdragon 888
In short: the winner of this comparison is the Snapdragon 888. It beats Exynos 1080 not only on CPU performance, but—most importantly—on the GPU side.
That said, you can’t really call Exynos 1080 a bad chipset. Compared to its predecessor, it brings several key upgrades, and its GPU performance even outdoes last year’s Snapdragon 865—which is definitely good news.
Do you like a battle between two flagship processors? Would you consider buying one of the new flagship devices? You can share your thoughts and opinions with us below in the discussion under the article. Follow our Facebook and the portal China Planet to learn more.
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