Exynos 2200 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: Efficiency tests indicate a CPU generational downgrade

Last week, the Exynos 2200-powered Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra was put through the paces in a Genshin Impact test, and returned performance generally worse than that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on Motorola's Edge X30. The Exynos 2200 has now been subjected to a series of benchmark tests as well, in an attempt to gauge its efficiency versus the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

The first test measures the efficiency of the largest cores on most of the current Android SoCs. As revealed by prior tests, the Exynos 2200 remains the more conservative chipset by design—a lower clock speed at 2.8 GHz—with its Cortex-X2 core consuming 3.78 W versus the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1's 4.0W. That mostly counts for nothing at the end of the day, however, as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 outperforms it, and delivers better efficiency numbers. Keeping power consumption low only makes sense if performance remains competitive, and the Exynos 2200 fails there with 10% lower peak performance.

Interestingly, the Cortex-X2 can now be confirmed to be less efficient than the Cortex-X1 on the Snapdragon 888. While the newer cores push out more power per GHz, they're still edged out by the older cores. Google's Tensor chip is an anomaly, with its Cortex-X1 cores lagging behind those of the Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888. From test results, the Snapdragon 865 looks to be the best option on the list, as it strikes a strong balance between peak performance and efficiency.

Moving on to A710 mid-core performance, the Exynos 2200 turns the tables on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with slightly better performance and efficiency. Samsung's implementation is flat-out better, it appears. The tester is yet to provide performance numbers of the A510 cores, but we'll be sure to keep you updated on that.

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