The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Performance Preview: Meet Kryo
by Ryan Smith & Andrei Frumusanu on December 10, 2015 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- SoCs
- Snapdragon
- Qualcomm
- Snapdragon 820
CPU Performance, Cont
Having taken a look at Snapdragon 820 and the Kryo CPU from an architectural perspective, let’s look at our higher level benchmarks. We’ll start as always with the web benchmarks.
There are two things we can immediately take away from these results. The first is that currently Google Chrome is incredibly unoptimized for Kryo, and this is something Qualcomm was also quick to mention. We won’t wax on about this as there’s nothing to say we haven’t said before, but Chrome could certainly stand to implement optimized JS engines sooner.
Otherwise if we look at Qualcomm’s native browser, things are greatly improved. Relative to both the Exynos 7420 (A57) powered Note 5 and the Snapdragon 810 (A57) powered Mi Note Pro, the MDP/S shows a significant lead. In fact it pretty much blows past those devices in Kraken. However while it easily takes the top spot for an Android device, even with Qualcomm’s native browser the 820 isn’t going to be able to catch up to the iPhone 6s Plus and its A9 SoC.
Basemark OS II 2.0 on the other hand is less consistent. The overall score again pegs the MDP/S as the best Android device, and by over 20%. However for reasons yet to be determined, the system score is still below the latest Samsung devices. Instead where the 820 shows a clear lead is with the storage (memory) score and the graphics score. In some cases it’s even beating the iPhone 6s Plus, though overall it will fall short.
Our final system benchmark, PCMark, once again puts the MDP/S in a good light overall, while the individual sub-tests are more widely varied. Likely owing to the same optimization issues that dogged Chrome performance, web browsing performance trails the A57 devices. Meanwhile video playback closely trails the Snapdragon 810 powered HTC One M9, and writing performance won’t quite surpass the Galaxy S6. Where the 820 MDP/S makes up for it is in the photo editing score, which is through the roof. Here Qualcomm’s development device holds a 34% performance lead over the next-fastest device, the 810/A57 based Mi Note Pro.
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kspirit - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
What are the chances this shows up in the Galaxy S7? Because let's be honest, a large reason of Qualcomm's drop in revenue is because Samsung is sticking to their own chips now. But the 820 looks interesting indeed.Clayevans - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
Probably better than the chance that this will show up in the iPhone 7, haha. But in all seriousness, I think everyone would be very surprised to see Sammy switch back. Any specific guesses on my part would be pure BS.close - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link
It will probably use multiple sourcing like other models do. So Samsung may sell enough phones to have the need to also source SoCs from Qualcomm. Also Samsung sells their Exynos SoC to other vendors so the entire production is not dedicated for internal use.frostyfiredude - Sunday, December 13, 2015 - link
There are a lot of complaints of network issues because of the S6's Shannon modem, in NA especially on both the operator and client sides; a return to the previous method of doing US/Canada with Qualcomm and everyone else Exynos seems likely for that reason. Especially since S820 seems quite decent.jjj - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
The rumors were that Qualcomm gets the CDMA carriers while everything else,including international unlocked version, is Exynos.Samsung would save a lot of money with their own SoC so they would use something else only if there was a very good reason to. The perf here doesn't seem like a good enough reason.
Clayevans - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
I remember back in the early days of Exynos, the USA galaxy phones would get snapdragon simply because Sammy couldn't produce enough of their own to cover global demand. They don't have that problem anymore. And like you said, there really aren't any compelling reasons for them to go back to Snapdragon that would justify the cost.jjj - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
In fairness the CPU perf is great, sure it doesn't seem like it will crush A72 but compared to SD801 the perf is fantastic - SD810 was terrible so can be ignored.In Geekbench in integer and FP it's over 2x the SD801 in single core and that's insane in a phone.That's why a comparison with older desktop cores would be nice. CPU perf is clearly hitting good enough in phones.
The memory perf is stupid good here.
2016 is exciting, what SoC wins doesn't really matter, we the users certainly win.
mmrezaie - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
How can you say performance is great?! It is actually at best as good as A72 performances reported so far, and not even on a same node size. So what was all the reason behind research and development when you build something as good as ARM's offering. No wonder other companies feel safe using ARM for their SOCs. I don't think samsung will go for this if they can manufacture their SOC in time.ddriver - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
Judging from the name, it will take Kryogenic cooling to really shine ;)BurntMyBacon - Monday, December 14, 2015 - link
@ddriver: "Judging from the name, it will take Kryogenic cooling to really shine ;)"Oh. I thought it meant that kryotic was used in the manufacturing process. ;')
Thanks for clearing that up.