The Snapdragon 845 Performance Preview: Setting the Stage for Flagship Android 2018
by Ryan Smith & Andrei Frumusanu on February 12, 2018 12:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Snapdragon
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
- SoCs
- Snapdragon 845
First Thoughts
Coming into 2018, Qualcomm is facing what we expect to be a busy and certainly competitive year for the company in the smartphone platform space. Iterating on the well-received Snapdragon 835 – and without the benefit of a new manufacturing node – is no easy task. All the while Apple has once again thrown down the gauntlet with their A11 SoC if one wants to argue about top tech, and even in the Android space Qualcomm isn’t the only high-end SoC vendor, as we await to see what Samsung’s Exynos 9810 and its new Exynos M3 CPU cores can achieve.
Still, it’s a challenge that Qualcomm should be prepared for, if not a bit unevenly. With a focus on architecture the company has been hard at work for the Snapdragon 845, and as a result while it’s very much a Qualcomm SoC, it’s also not just a rehash of Snapdragon 835. Both the CPU and GPU are seeing substantial overhauls, not to mention smaller upgrades across the board for everything from the modem to the audio codec. And while Qualcomm rightfully argues that there’s more to a platform than just raw compute performance – that all of these pieces contribute to the overall user experience – they remain vital to device performance and battery life. Which is to say that Qualcomm is innovating where they need to in order to continue improving the heart of many flagship 2018 Android smartphones.
Overall the Snapdragon 845’s system performance is a mixed bag. We had higher expectations from the new CPU changes, but it seems we’ve only gotten incremental improvements. Web workloads seem to be the Snapdragon 845’s forte as that’s where we see the largest improvements. ARM is working on a long awaited overhaul as the Austin team is busy with a brand new microarchitecture which should bring larger generational improvements, but alas only with the next generation of SoCs in 2019. For many flagship Android phones, 2018 should remain another conservative year and we should not have too high expectations.
But with that said, whatever Qualcomm doesn’t quite bring to the table with their CPU, they more than make up on the GPU side of matters. Qualcomm’s new Adreno 630 GPU easily impresses and widens the gap to the nearest competition. Compared to the Exynos 8895 and Kirin 970 I expect the Snapdragon 845 to have a 3.5-5x PPA advantage when it comes to the GPU. The competition should be worried as it’s no longer feasible to compensate the power efficiency disadvantage with larger GPU configurations and there is need for more radical change to keep up with Qualcomm.
And while we weren’t able to test for system power efficiency improvements for this preview, we weren’t left empty-handed and were able to quickly do a CPU power virus on the QRD845. The results there have turned out promising, with 1W per-core and slightly under 4W for four-core power usage, which are very much in line with the Snapdragon 835. The new system cache and GPU improvements should also noticeably improve SoC – and in turn device – efficiency, so I’m expecting that 2018’s Snapdragon 845 powered devices to showcase excellent battery life.
What remains to be seen then is how this translates into shipping products. Previous Qualcomm device previews have turned out to be rather accurate, but handset manufacturers have countless ways to customize their phones, both for good and for bad. What we can say for now is that it looks like Qualcomm has once again delivered its handset partners a solid SoC from which to build their flagship phones. So we’re eager to see what retail phones can deliver, and ultimately how the Snapdragon 845 fits into the overall market for 2018 Android flagship smartphones.
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gamertaboo - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Well, you sure see wildly different scores if you compare them using Geekbench. 4260 vs 1998 on single core, and 10,221 vs 6765 on multi-core I believe. Apple's chips are always faster, always. It's literally the one thing Apple at the very least, always does well.Gk12kung - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Dude your extremely mistaken , the processors in the x and 8 are differently binned . Since apples GPU is inhouse this year they couldn't get enough high quality GPU in time so the x uses higher binned gpu than 8 so the higher performance and the x uses faster ram than 8 which is also a factor in GPU scores . I've used a 8 and x there is rarely any throttling the d220AP is the lower GPU revision used in 8 and d221ap is the x version with higher bin GPUBronzeProdigy - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
The GFX bench is also wrong. The A11's GPU is behind. If you look at the sections for the X you'll see N/A. Look at the SD835/5T scores and you'll see they match up but the score on that test either doesn't exist or doesn't match the X's score. This is because they failed to note that the GFXBench has different versions (e.g. 3.1, 2.7, 3.0) so they wrote the wrong scores thinking that the scores on the X were something they're not.https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c0ebbebc7b3c...
peevee - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Except in real life users do not run SPEC for long time. They load and start apps, or process photos. It all takes less than a second.rocky12345 - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Yea because no one ever plays any games on theirs mobile devices which can go from 5 minutes to 5 hours of use and will heat up any device no matter who makes them. So if you have devices from a mobile maker that is known to heat up & then throttle from that heat then yep it won't be as fast as in the benches. I don't care if Apples makes them or Samsung it happens to every device but it happens worse on some than it does to others.Stochastic - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
This looks like a nice, albeit not earth shattering overhaul to the 835.Any chance we'll see a Google SoC in the Pixel 3 this year? Or is it more realistic to expect that in the Pixel 4/5? It's a bit boring seeing Snapdragon SoCs in practically all Android flagships.
Also, what's up with Chrome's lackluster Javascript performance? You mention that the Nitro engine Apple uses is much better optimized. You would think with all the competition in the browser space these days and Google's vested interest in the future of the web that they would push Javascript performance further.
Jon Tseng - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Not going to happen for a bunch of reasons, not least bc Google doesn't have baseband IP.Dr. Swag - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
I don't think we'll see Google SoCs unless pixel really gains market share. Not worth it to design and fabricate soc if you only sell a few millions phones.Stochastic - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Yes, but this would help them gain marketshare. They could perhaps even license the SoC to other OEMs in order to advance the Android hardware ecosystem as a whole. See this: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-dabbling-s...techconc - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Regarding Javascript performance, this article is placing far too much emphasis on the Javascript engine. Yes, Apple's Nitro engine is ahead of Google's V8 engine. However, the majority of the speed difference comes down to the fact that Javascript is inherently single threaded. (Yes, I know work is being do to attempt to address this, but it's not there yet). That, coupled with the fact that Apple's single core performance is WAY ahead of everyone else on ARM is why you see such a big difference in performance.