Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge: that is the Exynos 8890 against the Snapdragon 820?

Meanwhile the marketing of the Galaxy Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, we took advantage of MWC 2016 we make the Samsung booth to push the smartphone into a corner. We launched a series of benchmarks on the Galaxy S7 with its Exynos 8890. What he gives face to the Snapdragon 820? Response graphics.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge will end up with two different SoC, by region. In Europe, we have the right to the Exynos 8890, Samsung's smart home while in China and the US, it will be the Snapdragon 820 Qualcomm will be integrated into the new Korean giant smartphone. No benchmark has been launched on the Galaxy S7 features a Snapdragon 820 since planted and refused to finish. However, we were able to take over the version equipped with the Exynos 8890 unveiled last November, to test its performance.

4 vs 8 cores

Before turning to benchmarks, let's take a look at the forces. For its Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm has opted to include "only" four hearts, two hearts Kryo high performance capable of being clocked at 2.15 GHz and two hearts Kryo bass performance that is limited to 1.6 GHz. A strategy a bit more in line with what the company since 2013, Qualcomm mocked competitors who developed octo-core processors.With its Exynos 8890, Samsung continues this way the multiplication of hearts, since we found a total of eight cores: four Exynos M1 house design and four Cortex-A53 from ARM clocked at 1.6 GHz. M1 core operating frequency is rather special since they are able to reach 2.6 GHz (unheard mobile) to two, but reduce speed to 2.3 GHz when 3 or 4 active cores .
 


On the side of the GPU, the Adreno 530 Snapdragon 820 supports Open GL ES 3.2, Android Extension Pack and the new graphics API Vulkan 1.0. The Mali-T880 of the Exynos 8890 has 12 execution units (MP12) and is also compatible with the same graphics API that Adreno 530. The maximum operating frequency of the two chips is almost identical: 624 MHz for the GPU against Qualcomm 650 MHz for the graphics chip from Samsung.Both SoC are engraved with the same fine engraving: 14 nm from Samsung, and more precisely the 14LPP process more effective than 14LPE used for Exynos 7420 This new process is supposed to increase performance 10 % for the same consumption. Discover the Galaxy S7 performance against the MDP 820 in various benchmarks.

 

S7 vs Galaxy MDP 820

For comparisons between the Exynos 8890 and the Snapdragon 820, we will use the Qualcomm development of terminal on which we had done many measures in December. results to be taken lightly, as one side of the other, since the ROM used by Qualcomm was primarily developed to maximize performance, and it is likely that Samsung has done the same way on its terminals demonstration.
 

As we can see, the performance of the two terminals are close enough, especially in the field of processor power, as indicated by the physical test of 3DMark. Despite the presence of only four cores, clocked at a lower frequency than those of the 8890 Exynos, Snapdragon 820 manages to distil the same performance. So it seems that the hearts Kryo enjoy excellent CPI, that is to say the number of instructions that can process in one clock cycle.
 

In the field of graphics performance ,, there is a gap which is not negligible for the Snapdragon 820, which is growing gradually as the complexity of the 3D benchmark increases. Thus, the T-Rex scene GFXBench which uses the graphics API OpenGL ES 2.0, the difference between the two terminals is practically insignificant, nearly 6%. Manhattan seeking OpenGL ES version 3.0, the difference is most noticeable: 17% in favor of the Snapdragon 820. Finally, the new benchmark Car Chase uses Open GL ES 3.2 and Android Extension Pack, the difference reaches 20 %.

 

The practical performance

We recall that all these results should be taken with a grain of salt, since it is still prototypes, even in the case of MDP 820 - a thick and heavy development platform. It will therefore verify the behavior of the Exynos 8890 of marketed devices and those of the Snapdragon 820 integrated in a true smartphone, with higher thermal stress, but especially outside the benchmarks.Keeping performance will demand special attention when a few long sessions of play, over 10 minutes. The Galaxy Note 4, the version with a Exynos was doing was far more effective in the Real Racing 3 version with a Snapdragon 805, while benchmarks placed them side by side. It will also check the performance differences between the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, as the largest frame of the latter could have a positive impact on the cooling of the SoC and so on performance.
 

Qualcomm and Samsung: a win-win duo?

For the Galaxy S6, Samsung took the (wise) decision to dispense with Qualcomm and its Snapdragon 810 issues to focus on the excellent side Exynos 7420 Galaxy S5, the Exynos variant was only in Asia, while the Snapdragon variant was distributed to the rest of the world. The Galaxy S7 opens a new distribution and may naturally wonder about this change in strategy and return to dual sourcing. Several scenarios are possible.
 


First, we can see in this double supply a strong sign of good performance of the Snapdragon 820 that have restored confidence to Samsung, while the Snapdragon 810 was too weak to face the Exynos 7420 can also imagine another scenario in which Qualcomm had agreed to burn its chips at Samsung - who needs this lucrative contract, especially if Apple goes exclusively by TSMC for its future SoC A10 - only if the Korean giant agreed to incorporate some Snapdragon 820 in the Galaxy S7 to restore confidence in the San Diego and bounds.