The brand new Galaxy S21 collection of units have been out commercially for every week now, and we’ve managed to get our fingers on two Galaxy S21 Ultras – one with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888 SoC, and one with Samsung’s new Exynos 2100 SoC. Each chipsets this 12 months are extra comparable than ever, each now sporting comparable CPU configurations, and each being produced on a brand new Samsung 5nm (5LPE) course of node.
Forward of our full gadget assessment of the Galaxy S21 Extremely (and the smaller Galaxy S21), at this time we’re specializing in the primary take a look at outcomes of the brand new era of SoCs, placing them by means of their paces, and pitting them towards one another within the new 2021 aggressive panorama.
The Snapdragon 888
| Qualcomm Snapdragon Flagship SoCs 2020-2021 | |||
| SoC | Snapdragon 865 |
Snapdragon 888 |
|
| CPU | 1x Cortex-A77 @ 2.84GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Cortex-A77 4x Cortex-A55 4MB sL3 |
1x Cortex-X1 @ 2.84GHz 1x1024KB pL2 3x Cortex-A78 4x Cortex-A55 4MB sL3 |
|
| GPU | Adreno 650 @ 587 MHz | Adreno 660 @ 840MHz | |
| DSP / NPU | Hexagon 698
15 TOPS AI |
Hexagon 780
26 TOPS AI |
|
| Reminiscence Controller |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 33.4GB/s 3MB system stage cache |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB/s 3MB system stage cache |
|
| ISP/Digicam | Twin 14-bit Spectra 480 ISP
1x 200MP or 64MP with ZSL 4K video & 64MP burst seize |
Triple 14-bit Spectra 580 ISP
1x 200MP or 84MP with ZSL 4K video & 64MP burst seize |
|
| Encode/ Decode |
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265
Dolby Imaginative and prescient, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 720p960 infinite recording |
8K30 / 4K120 10-bit H.265
Dolby Imaginative and prescient, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG 720p960 infinite recording |
|
| Built-in Modem | none (Paired with external X55 solely) (LTE Class 24/22) (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
X60 built-in
(LTE Class 24/22) (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) |
|
| Mfc. Course of | TSMC 7nm (N7P) |
Samsung 5nm (5LPE) |
|
Beginning off with the brand new Snapdragon 888 SoC, Qualcomm’s new flagship mannequin makes iterative steps this era, with the most important modifications of the brand new design truly being within the type of the brand new Hexagon 780 accelerator, which fuses collectively conventional scalar and vector DSP operations with tensor execution engines inside one single IP block.
After all, we’re additionally seeing upgrades elsewhere within the structure, with the Snapdragon 888 being among the many first SoCs to make use of Arm’s new Cortex-X1 CPU IP, promising massive efficiency features relative to final era Cortex-A77 cores. The only X1 cores within the Snapdragon 888 clocks in at 2.84GHz – the identical because the earlier era Snapdragon 865’s prime Cortex-A77 cores, and fewer than the three.1GHz and three.2GHz Snapdragon 865+ and recently announced Snapdragon 870 SoCs.
Alongside the X1, we discover three Cortex-A78 cores at 2.42GHz, once more the identical clocks because the earlier era 865 SoCs, however this time round with double the L2 caches at 512KB.
The Cortex-A55 little cores stay an identical this era, clocking in at 1.8GHz.
Though we had been anticipating 8MB L3 cache flagship SoCs this 12 months, it does seem like Qualcomm opted to stay at 4MB for this era – however no less than the corporate dons the X1 core with the utmost 1MB L2 cache configuration.
On the GPU facet of issues, Qualcomm’s new Adreno 660 GPU now clocks in as much as a peak 840MHz – a whopping 43% larger frequency than the Snapdragon 865 GPU. The corporate’s efficiency claims listed below are additionally astonishing, promising a +35% enhance in efficiency. We’ll need to see how this all finally ends up when it comes to energy consumption and long-term efficiency within the later devoted GPU part.
What’s fairly completely different for the Snapdragon 888 this 12 months is that Qualcomm has moved from a TSMC N7P course of node to Samsung’s new 5LPE node – the widely wildcard on this entire state of affairs as we haven’t had any prior expertise with this new 5nm node.
The Exynos 2100
| Samsung Exynos SoCs Specs | ||
| SoC |
Exynos 990 |
Exynos 2100 |
| CPU | 2x Exynos M5 @ 2.73GHz 2MB sL2 3MB sL3 2x Cortex-A76 4x Cortex-A55 1MB sL3 |
1x Cortex-X1 @ 2.91GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Cortex-A78 4x Cortex-A55 4MB sL3 |
| GPU | Mali G77MP11 @ 800 MHz | Mali G78MP14 @ 854 MHz |
| Reminiscence Controller |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 2750MHz LPDDR5 / 44.0GB/s 2MB System Cache |
4x 16-bit CH
@ 3200MHz LPDDR5 / 51.2GB/s 6MB System Cache |
| ISP | Single: 108MP Twin: 24.8MP+24.8MP |
Single: 200MP Twin: 32MP+32MP (As much as quad simultaneous digicam) |
| NPU | Twin NPU + DSP + CPU + GPU 15 TOPs |
Triple NPU + DSP + CPU + GPU 26 TOPs |
| Media | 8K30 & 4K120 encode & decode H.265/HEVC, H.264, VP9 |
8K30 & 4K120 encode & 8K60 decode H.265/HEVC, H.264, VP9 |
| Modem | Exynos Modem Exterior
(LTE Class 24/22) (5G NR Sub-6) (5G NR mmWave) |
Exynos Modem Built-in
(LTE Class 24/18) (5G NR Sub-6) (5G NR mmWave) |
| Mfc. Course of | Samsung 7nm (7LPP) |
Samsung 5nm (5LPE) |
On the Samsung LSI facet of issues, we discover the brand-new Exynos 2100. In contrast to the Snapdragon 888’s extra incremental modifications when it comes to SoC design, the brand new Exynos is a fairly massive departure for Samsung’s SoC division as that is the primary flagship design in a few years that now not makes use of Samsung’s personal in-house CPU microarchitecture, however fairly reverts again to utilizing Arm Cortex cores, which on this case can be the brand new Cortex-X1 and Cortex-A78 cores.
From a high-level, the CPU configuration of the Exynos 2100 appears to be like nigh an identical to that of the Snapdragon 888, as each are 1+3+four designs with X1, A78 and A55 cores. The variations are within the particulars:
The X1 cores on the Exynos 2100 clock barely larger at as much as 2.91GHz, whereas the Cortex-A78 clock in considerably larger than the Snapdragon as they attain 2.81GHz. The Cortex-A55 cores are additionally fairly aggressive when it comes to frequency as they now attain 2.20GHz – so general throughout the board larger clocks than the Snapdragon variant.
The place the Exynos isn’t as aggressive although is in its cache configurations. Most significantly, the X1 cores right here solely function 512KB of L2 cache, which is a bit bizarre given the all-out-performance philosophy of the brand new CPU. The Cortex-A78s additionally see the utilization of 512KB L2 caches, whereas the little A55 cores function 64KB L2’s – lower than the Snapdragon counterparts.
Very like the Snapdragon, the L3 cache additionally falls in at 4MB fairly than the 8MB we might have hoped for this era, nevertheless Samsung does shock us with the utilization of an estimated 6-8MB system stage cache, up from the 2MB design within the Exynos 990.
On the GPU facet of issues, we see a Mali-G78MP14 at as much as 854MHz. That’s 27% extra cores and 6.7% larger frequency, and the corporate can be boasting huge efficiency features because it touts a 40% generational enchancment.
Allow them to battle
In at this time piece, we’ll be principally focusing round CPU and GPU efficiency, as an particularly attention-grabbing comparability will likely be to see how the 2 designs do towards one another, provided that they each now use Arm’s latest Cortex-X1 cores and each are sporting the identical manufacturing node.
The GPU comparisons may also be attention-grabbing – and possibly fairly controversial, because the outcomes gained’t be what many individuals can have been anticipating.
Whereas we might have appreciated to showcase AI efficiency of the 2 SoCs – sadly the software program state of affairs on the Galaxy S21’s proper now implies that neither SoC are absolutely benefiting from their new accelerators, in order that’s a subject to revisit in a couple of months’ time as soon as the correct frameworks have been up to date by Samsung.