Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 vs HiSilicon Kirin 710 vs HiSilicon Kirin 960s

Qualcomm Snapdragon 730

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 (SD730 Mobile Platform) is a fast mid-range ARM-based SoC largely found on Android tablets and smartphones. It integrates eight cores (octa-core) divided into two clusters. A fast performance cluster contains two ARM Cortex-A76 cores clocked at up to 2.2 GHz and a power efficiency cluster with six small ARM Cortex-A55 cores at up to 1.8 GHz. Depending on the workload only single clusters or all cores can run at different clock speeds.

The chip includes a range of other features like a fast X15 LTE radio (800 Mbits Cat 15 download, 150 Mbps Cat 13 upload), one of the first Wi-Fi 6 wireless radios (802.11ax), satellite positioning (GPS, QZSS, GLONASS, SBAS, Beidou, Galileo), USB-C 3.1, Spectra 350 ISP, Hexagon 688 DSP, H.265 4K30 video en- and decode, an LPDDR4X-3733 dual-channel memory controller and a Adreno 618 Grafikkarte.

The Snapdragon 730 is manufactured in the modern 8 nm process at Samsung.

HiSilicon Kirin 710

The HiSilicon Kirin 710 is a ARM-based mid-range Octa-Core-SoC for Android based smartphones and tablets. It was announced mid 2018 and contains 8 processor cores (4x Cortex-A73 at up to 2.2 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 at up to 1.7 GHz, BigLITTLE), an ARM Mali G51 MP4, a dual-channel LPDDR4 memory controller and a LTE radio (600 Mbps down, 150 Mbps up). Therefore, the CPU part is similar to the Kirin 960 and 970 (both higher clocked), but the graphics card is a lot slower. 

The Kirin 710 is manufactured at TSMC in 12 nm (compared to the 16nm Kirin 960 and 10nm Kirin 970).

The HiSilicon Kirin 710F is the same chip with a different package (FCCSP - Flip Chip Chip Scale Package) and offers the same specifications (see e.g. our review of the Huawei P Smart Z).

HiSilicon Kirin 960s

The HiSilicon Kirin 960S is an ARM based mid-range octa-core SoC for smartphones and tablets, which was introduced with the 2018 10.5-inch Huawei MediaPad M5. Compared to the normal Kirin 960, the 960S offers an additional NPU for AI calculations from the Kirin 970. Looks like to be slower clocked than the older Kirin 960.

Besides 8 CPU cores (4x Cortex-A73, 4x Cortex-A53), the SoC is also equipped with a modern Mali-G71 MP8 graphics adapter, a dual-channel LPDDR4 memory controller as well as an LTE Cat. 12/13 modem. It is one of the fastest ARM SoCs in the end of 2016. The Kirin 960 is manufactured in a modern 16-nm process at TSMC.