Samsung Exynos 7870 Octa vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917) vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 626

Samsung Exynos 7870 Octa

The Samsung Exynos 7 Octa is a 64-bit SoC for mainstream smartphones and tablets (usually Android based). It was announced in February 2016 and integrates eight Cortex-A53 cores, which are manufactured in a modern 14-nm process. Compared to the previous 28-nm-SoCs, the performance was increased and the power consumption is 30 % lower according to Samsung. The integrated LZE Cat.6 modem reaches transfer rates of up to 300 Mbps (downstream) and 50 Mbps (upstream). The dual-channel memory controller supports LPDDR3-1866 RAM.

The graphics adapter ARM Mali-T830 MP2 (core clock of 700 MHz according to Wikipedia) is also used in combination with the HiSilicon Kirin 650 SoC. Besides OpenGL ES 3.2, it also supports OpenCL 1.2 as well as DirectX 11 (FL 9_3). The performance is sufficient for common Android games from 2016 at medium details.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917)

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (8917) is an ARM-based entry level SoC for tablets and smartphones (mostly Android based). It was announced in February 2016 and integrates four 64-Bit Cortex-A53 CPU cores (quad-core) that clock with up to 1.4 GHz. Furthermore, there is a Adreno 308 graphics card, a LPDDR3 memory controller (max. 667 MHz) and wireless radios for WiFi and 4G/LTE included in the chip.

The Cortex-A53 is the successor of the entry level Cortex-A7 CPU cores. The A53 is now capable of 64 Bit (ARMv8-ISA) and adressing more than 4 GB RAM. According to ARM the performance per MHz is a lot better and even surpasses a Cortex-A9 core.

The integrated Adreno 308 ist the integrated graphics card that supports OpenGL ES 3.0.

The integrated wireless radios support WiFi 802.11ac Wave 2, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/GLONASS/Baidou, 2G, 3G and 4G (LTE Cat.4) standards. Futhermore, the SoC is able to decode 1080p videos in H.265 (encode only in H.264) and cameras with up to 13 MP.

The power consumption of the chip is ranging in the lower range, and therefore it is also suited for smaller smartphones. It is manufactured in 28 nm LP at TSMC.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 626

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 (SD626) is a mid-range octa-core SoC with eight ARM Cortex-A53 cpu cores at up to 2.2 GHz, an Adreno 506 GPU, a DDR3L-1866 memory controller and a X9 LTE (Cat 7, 4G+, 300 Mbps down, 150 Mbps up) modem. Furthermore, the chip supports 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1. It is manufactured in 14nm FinFet. The processor performance should be a bit higher than the average Snapdragon 625, due to the 200 MHz higher maximum clock speed.