So we know what the A9 entails, so based on what we have heard about the Snapdragon 820, how do we think it will compare to the A9?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Snapdragon 820 (Galaxy S7) vs. A9 (iPhone 6S/6S Plus
- Thread starter NickMcCandless
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I expect ~15% slower single threaded performance but ~20% faster multi threaded.
Assuming ~2.8ghz clock speed.
Yea I was also thinking single core would be slower but multithreaded would be faster. How about the graphics?
Graphics will most likely be better however this won't matter because it'll be stuck into phones with far higher resolution screens than the iPhones.
Apple usually seems to have everyone beat on graphics for the entire year though. If you look at the A8, wasn't it beating every phone in graphics benchmarks until just recently with the A9 and latest Android devices?
as usual Qualcomm will try to add cores and Ghz to keep pace with Apple .... and will fail
Never mind the Snapdragon 820 it will have Overheating issue just like when they first launch the 810. lol
The way that iOS, A9 chip and 2GB of LPDDR4 Ram are optimized for one another I wouldn't worry at all. Not only that but based on Anandtech's brief performance review the 6S/6S+ are amazing and powerful pieces of hardware!
No other phone out there even comes close!
No other phone out there even comes close!
Will be interesting to see how the competition stacks up going forward meaning what phones release between now and the next iPhone.
Crazy thing is I haven't seen any games that even fully utilize the A8 yet. Would be nice if developers stepped up their graphics game and took advantage of what Apple is offering sooner.
I expect the Snapdragon 820 to be somewhere in the current Exynos's Geekbench score range. It's too bad that ever since the Snapdragon 800, Qualcomm has fallen way behind. That chip came out in late 2013, and they were only able to marginally improve it for a while (801 and 805). The 810 would have been ok, but we all know what happened to that chip. Plus it doesn't even score that well in Geekbench.
Right now, the only contenders are the A9/A9X and the current and upcoming Exynos chips. Who knows how NVIDIA's X1 will score, but Qualcomm needs to step-up their game. However, the current rumor of the Galaxy S7 with the Snapdragon 820 having one extra gig of RAM is not a good sign. Reminds me of the Galaxy S3 that had 2GB of RAM to make up for the lower performance compared to the Exynos version.
Right now, the only contenders are the A9/A9X and the current and upcoming Exynos chips. Who knows how NVIDIA's X1 will score, but Qualcomm needs to step-up their game. However, the current rumor of the Galaxy S7 with the Snapdragon 820 having one extra gig of RAM is not a good sign. Reminds me of the Galaxy S3 that had 2GB of RAM to make up for the lower performance compared to the Exynos version.
The X1 has already been benchmarked and blows the A9 out of the water but right now only the Shield TV box has it.
Yeah, I expected that. The real comparison would be to the A9X, since they're both tablet chips.
Have you seen any Geekbench scores for the X1 by any chance?
Nothing from Geekbench but graphics benchmarks have released and it's incredible
I am leaning that way too. Why would Samsung go back now? They have had success with their own Exynos chips
How do you guys think the next Exynos chip that may be in the S7 will compare to the A9? All rumors I have seen point to the 820 being in the S7 though. I think Samsung is wanting to get the S7 on the market ASAP since the S6 didn't do as well as they expected and they want to compete with the new iPhones.
I would bet for a lower single-core Geekbench score than the A9 (perhaps around 2,000) but a higher multi-core score (perhaps around 6,000).
I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to save the next Exynos chip for the Galaxy Note 6 and other premium phones that would be released months after the Galaxy S7. If the Snapdragon 820 turns out to have the same performance as the current Exynos, then that will be disappointing for many.
I am curious What Apps Are Single threaded these days ?
It is impressive that Apple A chips out pace Samsungs or Qualcoms CPU's using 2 Cores vs 4 Cores or 8 Cores.
At some point in the near Future asking what is the Single Threaded performance because useless.
I have an x1 setup and ran benchmarks on it and posted a thtead on here.nothing comes close to it in graphics benchmarks.
From memory 120fps trex off screen.it was more then double the gs6 and I think the a9 gets around 70fps.
Geekbench was 1700 single and 5500 multi but the kernel and rom I'm using only shows quad core.I'm not sure if the device is a quad or 8 core because nvidea dosnt really say what it is.
Arm a72 architecture is 45% faster single core so base that for next gen exynos.so if a typical 7420 runs 1500 single core we can expect 2175 geekbench at same clocks but rumors are saying 2.5ghz vs 2.1 on the 7420 so that leaked run of 2400 seems more likely for single core
PS this is off the shelf arm a72 cores and not the custom cores they are using so its up in the air but even if they go vanilla arm cores like the 7420 it will compete in single core and dominate in multi.
I'm willing to bet unlocked phones will break 10k multi core.
Developers have Samsung's open source kernels and have now unlocked the faster gpu clocks and are now working on raising the throttle temps to run sustained clocks longer.
I just changed mine from 80c to 90c and I can't get the thing to throttle clocks running most benchmarks.
It's killing about 5-10% battery life but we'll worth it to me.
From memory 120fps trex off screen.it was more then double the gs6 and I think the a9 gets around 70fps.
Geekbench was 1700 single and 5500 multi but the kernel and rom I'm using only shows quad core.I'm not sure if the device is a quad or 8 core because nvidea dosnt really say what it is.
Arm a72 architecture is 45% faster single core so base that for next gen exynos.so if a typical 7420 runs 1500 single core we can expect 2175 geekbench at same clocks but rumors are saying 2.5ghz vs 2.1 on the 7420 so that leaked run of 2400 seems more likely for single core
PS this is off the shelf arm a72 cores and not the custom cores they are using so its up in the air but even if they go vanilla arm cores like the 7420 it will compete in single core and dominate in multi.
I'm willing to bet unlocked phones will break 10k multi core.
Developers have Samsung's open source kernels and have now unlocked the faster gpu clocks and are now working on raising the throttle temps to run sustained clocks longer.
I just changed mine from 80c to 90c and I can't get the thing to throttle clocks running most benchmarks.
It's killing about 5-10% battery life but we'll worth it to me.
Last edited:
Apple should just open a small gaming studio and create some first party titles to show how much can be achieved.
Apple Should just look under the couch Cushions and Buy Nintendo and settle the cellphone debate once and for all.
Or Alphabet the company which owns Google could do the same. And make the game exclusive