Samsung’s recently announced mobile platform Exynos 2100 aims to take on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888. Samsung uses both mobile platforms in its high-end phones depending on the market. India gets Exynos 2100 based Samsung flagship phones while the US gets Snapdragon 888 based phones. Recently, Samsung introduced the Samsung S21 series powered by Snapdragon 888 or Exynos 2100. So, it is important to understand what mobile platform is better and how these mobile SoCs differ.
Exynos 2100 vs Snapdragon 888
Processor | Exynos 2100 | Snapdragon 888 |
---|---|---|
Node size | 5nm EUV | 5nm |
TDP | 10W | 10W |
CPU | 1 x ARM Cortex-X1 at 2.9GHz 3 x ARM Cortex-A78 at 2.8GHz 4 x ARM Cortex-A55 at 2.2GHz | 1 x ARM Cortex-X1 at 2.84GHz 3 x ARM Cortex-A78 at 2.40GHz 4 x ARM Cortex-A55 at 1.8GHz |
GPU | Mali-G78 MP14 (14 cores) | Adreno 660 |
Architecture | Vallhall 2 | Adreno 600 |
Memory type | LPDDR5 | LPDDR5 |
Memory frequency | 3200 MHz | 3200 MHz |
Max size | 16GB | 16GB |
Storage type | UFS 3.1 | UFS 3.0, UFS 3.1 |
ISP | Name not available Support for single camera up to 200MP | Spectra 580 Support for single camera up to 200MP |
AI Engine | Name not available Triple-core NPU | Hexagon 780 26 TOPS |
Max On-Device Display | 4K at 60Hz QHD+ at 144Hz | 4K at 60Hz QHD+ at 144Hz |
Max External Display | 8K | 4K at 60Hz |
Modem | Name not available Peak download speed: 7.35 Gbps | Snapdragon X60 5G Peak download speed: 7.5 Gbps |
Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 2.4GHz, 5GHz, 6GHz GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, NAVIC | Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 2.4GHz, 5GHz, 6GHz GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS, NAVIC |
If you have checked the side by side comparison, you can see that both Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 have the same CPU architecture and same arrangement. Exynos 2100 seems the winner because the CPU cores in Exynos 2100 are clocked higher than the cores in Snapdragon 888 processor.
Exynos 2100 comes with a Mali-G78 GPU while the Snapdragon 888 is paid with Adreno 660 GPU. Adreno 660 GPU seems slightly better than the Mali-G78 GPU used with Exynos 2100.Both
Exynos 2100’s triple-core NPU claims to offer up to 26 billion operations per second (TOPS). The is the same Qualcomm boasts for Hexagon 780 used in the Snapdragon 888.
Exynos 2100 ISP supports 200MP cameras and 120FPS 4K video recording and 60FPS 8K video playback. It also the first chipset to offer support for the AV1 decoder for 8K. Spectra 580 of Snapdragon 888 supports 200MP cameras and 8K video capture at 30 FPS. It also supports 4K HDR recording with computational HDR.
Up to 4K at 60Hz and QHD+ at 144Hz display. Exynos 2100 has a slight advantage here because it supports an 8K max external display while Snapdragon 888 supports a 4K max external display. But on-device display support is the same and this matters the most.
Both the SoCs have integrated 5G modem and support mmWave and sub-6GHz spectrums. Other connectivity options are also the same.
Exynos 2100 comes with a powerful CPU but Qualcomm’s chipset has the GPU advantage. Snapdragon 888 also features better ISPs. Overall, Snapdragon 888 has a slight edge over Exynos 2100. We are still waiting for the devices powered by these SoCs to understand the real-world performance and benchmarks. This will help in understanding what mobile platform is actually better and why.