The Snapdragon 855 Performance Preview: Setting the Stage for Flagship Android 2019
by Andrei Frumusanu on January 15, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
- SoCs
- 7nm
- Snapdragon 855
GPU Performance & Power
GPU performance of the new Adreno 640 in the Snapdrago 855 is interesting: The company’s performance claims were relatively conservative as they showcased that the new unit would perform only 20% better than its predecessor. This is a relatively low figure given that Qualcomm also advertises that the new GPU sees a 50% increase in ALU configuration, as well as of course coming on a new 7nm process which should give the SoC a lot of new headroom.
Before discussing the implications in more detail, let’s see the performance numbers in the new GFXBench Aztec benchmarks.
As a reminder, we were only able to test the peak performance of the phone as we didn’t have time for a more thorough sustained performance investigation.
Both Aztec High and Normal results fall pretty much in line with Qualcomm’s advertised 20% improvement over the Snapdragon 845. Here the new chipset falls behind Apple’s A11 and A12 chips – although power consumption at peak levels is very different as we’ll see in just a bit.
| GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power) |
||||
| Mfc. Process | FPS | Avg. Power (W) |
Perf/W Efficiency |
|
| iPhone XS (A12) Warm | 7FF | 76.51 | 3.79 | 20.18 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Cold / Peak | 7FF | 103.83 | 5.98 | 17.36 fps/W |
| Snapdragon 855 QRD | 7FF | 71.27 | 4.44 | 16.05 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon 845) | 10LPP | 61.16 | 5.01 | 11.99 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 20 Pro (Kirin 980) | 7FF | 54.54 | 4.57 | 11.93 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9 (Exynos 9810) | 10LPP | 46.04 | 4.08 | 11.28 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Snapdragon 835) | 10LPE | 38.90 | 3.79 | 10.26 fps/W |
| LeEco Le Pro3 (Snapdragon 821) | 14LPP | 33.04 | 4.18 | 7.90 fps/W |
| Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820) | 14LPP | 30.98 | 3.98 | 7.78 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 10 (Kirin 970) | 10FF | 37.66 | 6.33 | 5.94 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Exynos 8895) | 10LPE | 42.49 | 7.35 | 5.78 fps/W |
| Galaxy S7 (Exynos 8890) | 14LPP | 29.41 | 5.95 | 4.94 fps/W |
| Meizu PRO 5 (Exynos 7420) | 14LPE | 14.45 | 3.47 | 4.16 fps/W |
| Nexus 6P (Snapdragon 810 v2.1) | 20Soc | 21.94 | 5.44 | 4.03 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 8 (Kirin 950) | 16FF+ | 10.37 | 2.75 | 3.77 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960) | 16FFC | 32.49 | 8.63 | 3.77 fps/W |
| Huawei P9 (Kirin 955) | 16FF+ | 10.59 | 2.98 | 3.55 fps/W |
Switching over to the power efficiency table in 3D workloads, we see Qualcomm take the lead in terms of power efficiency at peak performance, only trailing behind Apple's newest A12. What is most interesting is the fact that the Snapdragon 855’s overall power consumption has gone down compared to the Snapdragon 845 – now at around 4.4W versus the 5W commonly measured in S845 phones.
T-Rex’s performance gains are more limited because the test is more pixel and fill-rate bound. Here Qualcomm made a comment about benchmarks reaching very high framerates as they become increasingly CPU bound, but I’m not sure if that’s actually a problem yet as GFXBench has been traditionally very CPU light.
| GFXBench T-Rex Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power) |
||||
| Mfc. Process | FPS | Avg. Power (W) |
Perf/W Efficiency |
|
| iPhone XS (A12) Warm | 7FF | 197.80 | 3.95 | 50.07 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Cold / Peak | 7FF | 271.86 | 6.10 | 44.56 fps/W |
| Snapdragon 855 QRD | 7FF | 167.19 | 3.83 | 43.65 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon 845) | 10LPP | 150.40 | 4.42 | 34.00 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9 (Exynos 9810) | 10LPP | 141.91 | 4.34 | 32.67 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Snapdragon 835) | 10LPE | 108.20 | 3.45 | 31.31 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 20 Pro (Kirin 980) | 7FF | 135.75 | 4.64 | 29.25 fps/W |
| LeEco Le Pro3 (Snapdragon 821) | 14LPP | 94.97 | 3.91 | 24.26 fps/W |
| Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820) | 14LPP | 90.59 | 4.18 | 21.67 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Exynos 8895) | 10LPE | 121.00 | 5.86 | 20.65 fps/W |
| Galaxy S7 (Exynos 8890) | 14LPP | 87.00 | 4.70 | 18.51 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 10 (Kirin 970) | 10FF | 127.25 | 7.93 | 16.04 fps/W |
| Meizu PRO 5 (Exynos 7420) | 14LPE | 55.67 | 3.83 | 14.54 fps/W |
| Nexus 6P (Snapdragon 810 v2.1) | 20Soc | 58.97 | 4.70 | 12.54 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 8 (Kirin 950) | 16FF+ | 41.69 | 3.58 | 11.64 fps/W |
| Huawei P9 (Kirin 955) | 16FF+ | 40.42 | 3.68 | 10.98 fps/W |
| Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960) | 16FFC | 99.16 | 9.51 | 10.42 fps/W |
Again switching over to the power and efficiency tables, we see that the Snapdragon 855 is posting a ~30% efficiency boost over the Snapdragon 845, all while slightly improving performance.
Overall, I’m very happy with the initial performance and efficiency results of the Snapdragon 855. The S845 was a bit disappointing in some regards because Qualcomm had opted to achieve the higher performance figures by increasing the peak power requirements compared to exemplary thermal characteristics of the Snapdragon 835. The new chip doesn’t quite return to the low power figures of that generation, however it meets it half-way and does represent a notable improvement over the Snapdragon 845.
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WildBikerBill - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
What I want to know is...now that we know the high end, what do the affordable mid-range products become?B3an - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
This SoC is VERY disappointing. Wont be upgrading this year to any phone that has this.Hopefully Samsungs new SoC for 2019 is much MUCH better than the utter joke they had in the Galaxy S9... That was a fucking disaster... I'm hoping it actually performs well in REAL WORLD cases this time, not just mostly meaningless benchmarks, but i doubt it. Samsung reminds me of when desktop PC GPU makers would cheat in benchmarks by using driver hacks.
serendip - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
It looks like Qualcomm is having an Intel-like moment where performance stops having meaningful increases year-on-year. For me, an SD835 device is more than fast enough and an 855 only makes sense for higher-performing larger devices like Windows tablets.Time to focus on the software then... my old SD650 device got a new lease on life with a clean build of Lineage on Android Pie. The same slowdown that hit the laptop/PC markets could cause a crash in the smartphone market as people keep their phones for 3-4 years instead of upgrading annually.
serendip - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
I doubt it. Apple seems to be the only one with a cracking chip design team. Huawei seems to be doing decent work with HiSilicon but ARM designs are still far behind.Does it matter though? Apple's latest chips are so overpowered for their phones and tablets, the performance numbers are more for bragging rights than anything else. That could change once they start using A-series chips in their laptops.
yankeeDDL - Sunday, January 20, 2019 - link
Disclaimer: I have been using a Galaxy S8 (SD835) and I don't feel the need to upgrade anytime soon, however:a) Having more power is always nice, and there are times where the phone ... stutters, especially when moving from "heavy" games.
b) The gap with the iphones is embarrassing, and I don't see any technical justification. Yes, the iPhones are optimized all around (HW+SW) thanks to their closed ecosystem, but nearly 2x gap on the GPU is a deliberate choice which should be, at the very least justified.
We need competition in the mobile CPU/GPU, or Qualcomm will quickly become the Intel of mobile, sitting on his a** until something better comes along.
cha0z_ - Monday, January 21, 2019 - link
Dunno why Andrei is so kind in his wording about the new snapdragon. For start it's nothing that more powerful vs the kirin 980 (while it was shaped to literally obliterate it in both CPU/GPU, especially the GPU). Also even the A11 is making a joke of it and the A12 sustained performance is higher than the sd855 peak in GPU... and CPU is also for the A12 and even A11.I would kinda understand for the sd855 to lack behind the A12 with 15% in CPU/GPU, will accept somewhat to lose to the A12 even with more, but losing to the A11 is roflmao funny. How in the world you can call it success when qualcomm(as a leader in that regard) can't catch up with apple for years? Recently even the GPU started to lag behind BIG time, before atleast that was on par. Well.. cool.
mfaisalkemal - Sunday, January 20, 2019 - link
Hi Andrei, what do you think about 3 benchmark on https://www.asteroidsbenchmarks.com ?all of them include metal and vulkan api benchmark so we can comparing iOS and Vulkan mobile.
The benchmark include off screen test.
DontTreadOnMe - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
Does this A76 CPU support the pointer authentication codes that Apple have had since iPhone X? It seems like this is a potentially very useful security feature that it would be nice to see on Android devices.Uol - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
thank you <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">site</a>Nystiael - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Very nice. I will but it by I don't have the money atm.Greetings
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