UNISOC SC9863A vs Mediatek Helio G36 vs Samsung Exynos 850

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.

Mediatek Helio G36

The Mediatek Helio G36 is an entry level ARM SoC for smartphones (mainly Android based) that was introduced in late 2023. It is manufactured in a 12 nm FinFET process and is equipped with 8 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at up to 2.2 GHz. Compared to the similar Helio G25, the G36 offers higher CPU clock speeds (+ 200 MHz), GPU clock speeds (+30 MHz) and supports higher display resolutions of up to 2400 x 1800. Compared to the similar Helio G35, the G36 offers a 100 MHz lower CPU clock but supports 90Hz screens.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a LTE Cat.4 modem, a Wi-Fi 5 / Bluetooth 5.0 modem, a LPDDR3-933 / LPDDR4-1200 / LPDDR4x-1600 memory controller, a IMG PowerVR GE8320 graphics card, and a 1080p30 video de- and encoder (H.265 decoding, H.264 encoding).

Samsung Exynos 850

The Samsung Exynos 850 is a System on a Chip (SoC) for entry level smartphones (Android based). It was announced in May 2020 and the first device with it is the Samsung Galaxy A21s. The chip integrates a processor with 8 small ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock with up to 2 GHz (octa core).

The multi threaded performance is quite good thanks to 8 cores, the single threaded performance suffers a bit from the small A55 cores, although the clock rate of up to 2 GHz can help a bit.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a LTE modem (Cat.7 2CA up to 300 MBit/s download, Cat.13 2CA 150 MBit/s upload), a Wi-fi 5 modem (802.11ac), LPPDDR4x memory controller, eMMC 5.1 flash memory controller and a video engine for FHD 60fps encoding and decoding (H.265, H.264, VP9).

It is manufactured in the modern 8nm LPP process at Samsung and should offer a good power efficiency and therefore it is also suited for small smartphones.