UNISOC SC9863A vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 (MSM8937) vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 439

UNISOC SC9863A

The Unisoc SC9863A (formerly Spreadtrum) is an entry level octa core SoC with 8 ARM Cortex-A55 cores in two clusters. One performance cluster with up to 1.6 GHz and a efficiency cluster with up to 1.2 GHz. The SoC also integrates an LTE modem (TDD-LTE/FDD-LTE/TD-SCDMA/WCDMA/GGE), a PowerVR IMG8322 /GE8322 graphics card and 1080p video support.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 (MSM8937)

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 (SD430) is a lower mainstream SoC for (Android based) smartphones and tablets. Contrary to the Snapdragon 630, it is still manufactured in a 28-nm process and also consists of an octa-core CPU part with ARM Cortex-A53 cores. However, they are only clocked at up to 1.4 GHz. The integrated X6 LTE modem supports Cat. 4 with maximum transfer rates of 150 Mbps (downstream) and 75 Mbps (upstream). The SoC also includes an Adreno 505 GPU with support for Vulkan and OpenGL ES 3.1. WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1 are supported as well. The memory controller supports LPDDR3 clocked at 800 MHz (so probably dual-channel DDRL-1600). 

Qualcomm Snapdragon 439

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 (SD439) is a lower mainstream SoC for (Android based) smartphones and tablets. Compared to the older Snapdragon 435, the 439 is now manufactured in the current 12nm FinFET process and offers higher clock speeds of 2 GHz of the eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores (compared to 1.4 GHz). Wifi (now ac Wave 2 / Wifi 5) and Bluetooth (v5) were also updated, however the GPU still is the rather slow Adreno 505 and the LTE modem was even downgraded to a X6 with only Cat. 4/5 (max. 150 Mbps download, 75 Mbps upload).

Thanks to the higher maximum clock speed, the performance of the Snapdragon 439 mobile platform can reach the old Snapdragon 625 (also 2 GHz with 8x Cortex-A53). However, there is still a big gap to the SoCs with bigger performance cores.