Samsung Exynos 9825 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 vs Samsung Exynos 9810

Samsung Exynos 9825

The Samsung Exynos 9 9825 is a mobile SoC for smartphones and tablets. It was announced in the Samsung Note 10 line in August 2019. The processor integrates three clusters of processor cores with different architectures. Two big Samsung custom M4 cores clock up to 2.73 GHz and deliver peak performance. Two additional ARM Cortex-A75 are also for performance tasks and clock at up to 2.4 GHz (up from 2.3 GHz in the 9820). Finally, four small and power efficient ARM-Cortex A55 cores clock at up to 1.9 GHz are in the third cluster. The different clusters can run simultaneously thanks to DinamIQ.

The integrated LTE modem supports LTE-Advanced Pro Cat.20 (8CA 2 Gbps download, 3CA 316 Mbps upload). The integrated graphics card is a ARM Mali G76MP12 with 12 cores. Thanks to higher clock rates, the G76 is now a bit faster compared to the Exynos 9820.

The performance of the CPU part is positioned in the high end segment for smartphone processors. Due to the slight changes in clock rates, it is very comparable to the older Eynos 9 9820. Maybe in longer load phases, the improved 7nm process helps to maintain clock speeds a bit better. The direct competitor Snapdragon 855 can be left behind in single-core benchmarks like Geekbench and operates on par in multi-core benchmarks.

The SoC is produced at Samsung in the new 7nm LPP (with EUV) process that should improve power efficiency compared to the Exynos 9820.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in December 2018. The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 2.84 GHz and three further fast ARM Cortex-A76 performance cores, which can reach up to 2.42 GHz. These are complemented by four power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock up to a maximum of 1.8 GHz. The higher ‘Prime Core’ clock speed should provide significantly better single core performance than the Snapdragon 845, but we suspect that the Snapdragon 855 will fall short of the Apple A12 Bionic. The new SoC should have up to 45% faster single-core performance and 35% multi-core performance than its predecessor. Qualcomm praises the Snapdragon 855’s ability to maintain its performance when faced with sustained load, beating the Apple A12 Bionic SoC and the HiSilicon Kirin 980.

The SoC also integrates the new X24 LTE modem that Qualcomm promises will deliver up to 2 Gbit/s maximum download speed over LTE Cat.20 and up to 316 Mbit/s upload speeds. The Snapdragon 855 can be configured with the company’s new X50 5G modem too.

Qualcomm has also improved the integrated Wi-Fi modem, which is Wi-Fi 6-ready, has 8x8 Sounding and supports up to 802.11 ay Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi modem can utilise the 60 GHz mmWave band for up to 10 Gbit/s internet speeds.

The Hexagon 690 DSP has undergone the most revisions of that which Qualcomm has integrated into the Snapdragon 855. The new DSP incorporates a neural processing unit (NPU) with dedicated Tensor-cores that can execute up to 7 trillion operations per second in conjunction with the CPU and GPU. In short, the Snapdragon 855 should be three times faster than the Snapdragon 845 and two times faster than the Kirin 980 SoC.

The Snapdragon 855 also has a Spectra 380 ISP onboard, which is the world’s first chip to incorporate a Computer Vision Engine (CV-ISP) that can perform depth calculations in videos at up to 60 FPS. The Snapdragon 855 should deliver real-time portrait modes or be able to detect objects with relatively low power consumption.

The built-in memory controller supports up to 16 GB LPDDR4x RAM (4 x 16-bit). Moreover, the Adreno 640 has 50% more compute units (ALUs) than the Adreno 630, while Qualcomm claims that it should be 20% faster than its predecessor. We currently do not know what clock speeds the Adreno 640 will operate at as Qualcomm did not announce these during the announcement of the Snapdragon 855.

Qualcomm will manufacturer the Snapdragon 855 at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) using a 7 nm FinFET process. The switch to 7 nm manufacturing should make the SD855 20% more efficient than the SD845. Qualcomm has not officially announced the thermal design power (TDP) of the SD855, but we suspect that the SoC will reach a maximum of 5 W and will average around 3.5 W under load.

Samsung Exynos 9810

The Samsung Exynos 9 9810 is a mobile SoC for smartphones and tablets. It was announced early 2018 and should be integrated in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9 series (at least partly). It integrates eight CPU cores (octa core) in two clusters. The performance cluster integrates four Samsung M3 at 2.9 GHz and the power efficiency cluster four small ARM Cortex-A55 cores at 1.9 GHz. The Samsung M3 cores are based on Samsungs own design and now offer a wider pipeline, improved cache memory and bigger caches. This leads to a twice as fast single-core performance and a 40 percent improved multi-core performance according to Samsung (most likely compared to the previous Exynos 8898).

The integrated LTE modem also got a siginifcant upgrade and now supports Cat.18/13 LTE for up to 1.2 Gbps download and 200 Mbps upload. This is achieved with 6x20 MHz CA, 256-QAM in download and 2x20 MHz in upload.

As a GPU, Samsung integrates a ARM Mali G72MP18 (only 18 clusters, compared to the 20 clusters of the predecessor G71MP20). Most likely Samsung increases performance due to a higher core clock of the graphics card.

The memory controller looks similar to the 8898 and supports LPDDR4x 1800 MHz. The video engine now also supports 10 bit videos (as before 4k120 H.265/HEVC, H.264 and VP9 de- and encoding). 

The SoC is produced at Samsung in the new 10nm LPP process (the Exynos 8898 still used the 10nm LPE process) that should also help with some of the performance gains.