The Samsung Galaxy S20+, S20 Ultra Exynos & Snapdragon Review: Megalomania Devices
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 3, 2020 9:30 AM ESTMachine Learning Inference Performance
The new SoC generations also bring with them new AI capabilities, however things are quite different in terms of their capabilities. We saw the Snapdragon 865 add to the table a whole lot of new Tensor core performance which should accelerate ML workloads, but the software still plays a big role in being able to extract that capability out of the hardware.
Samsung’s Exynos 990 is quite odd here in this regard, the company quoted the SoC’s NPU and DSP being able to deliver a 10TOPs but it’s not clear how this figure is broken down. SLSI has also been able to take advantage of the new Mali-G77 GPU and its ML abilities, exposing them through NNAPI.
We’re skipping AIMark for today’s test as the benchmark couldn’t support hardware acceleration for either device, lacking updated support for neither Qualcomm’s or SLSI’s ML SDK’s. We thus fall back to AIBenchmark 3, which uses NNAPI acceleration.
AIBenchmark 3
AIBenchmark takes a different approach to benchmarking. Here the test uses the hardware agnostic NNAPI in order to accelerate inferencing, meaning it doesn’t use any proprietary aspects of a given hardware except for the drivers that actually enable the abstraction between software and hardware. This approach is more apples-to-apples, but also means that we can’t do cross-platform comparisons, like testing iPhones.
We’re publishing one-shot inference times. The difference here to sustained performance inference times is that these figures have more timing overhead on the part of the software stack from initializing the test to actually executing the computation.
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI CPU
We’re segregating the AIBenchmark scores by execution block, starting off with the regular CPU workloads that simply use TensorFlow libraries and do not attempt to run on specialized hardware blocks.
In the purely CPU accelerated workloads, we’re seeing both phones performing very well, but the Snapdragon 865’s A77 cores here are evidently in the lead by a good margin. It’s to be noted that the scores are also updated for the S10 phones – I noted a big performance boost with the Android 10 updates and the newer NNAPI versions of the test.
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI INT8
Integer ML workloads on both phones is good, but because the Snapdragon 865 leverages the Hexagon DSP cores for such workload types, it’s much in lead ahead of the Exynos 990 S20. This latter variant however also showcases some very big performance improvements compared to its predecessor. I still think that Samsung here is only exposing the GPU of the SoC for NNAPI, but because of the new microarchitecture being able to accelerate ML workloads, we’re seeing a big performance improvement compared to the Exynos 9820.
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI FP16
In FP16 workloads, the Exynos 990’s GPU actually manages to more often outperform the Snapdragon 865’s Adreno unit. In workloads that allow it, HiSilicon’s NPU still is far in the lead in workloads as it support FP16 acceleration which isn’t present on either the Snapdragon or Exynos SoCs – both falling back to their GPUs.
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI FP32
Finally, FP32 also again uses the GPU of each SoC, and again the Exynos 990 presents quite a large performance lead ahead of the Snapdragon 865 unit.
It’s certainly encouraging to see the Samsung SoC keep up with the Snapdragon variant of the S20, pointing out that other vendors now finally are paying better attention to their ML capabilities. We don’t know much at all about the DSP or the NPU of the Exynos 990 as Samsung’s EDEN AI SDK is still not public – I hope that they finally open up more and allow third-party developers to take advantage of the available hardware.
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iphonebestgamephone - Sunday, April 5, 2020 - link
Oh and what does a pro like you use?sanjeev.k - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
Hi Andrei,Thanks for your detailed review. Any change Anandtech will be reviewing the note 20 later in the year (as Anandtech have not reviewed the note xx series past few years) ?
Reliable leaker @IceUniverse hints that Note series will implement an optimised solution for 120 Hz refresh rate - so I am assuming that to mean that power inefficiency issues at 120 hz refresh rate will be fixed in the note series.
If you are going to review the Note series, at least we will know whats the improvement like as compared to Galaxy S series. Then I can decide if I want to import the Snapdragon 865 Note series or import S20 865 series and bear with the 120 Hz power consumption issue
abufrejoval - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
I bought the first Galaxy Note for its size: My hands are much more capable than my eyes up close. I stuck around for the Note 3 and then abandoned the brand as they went off into Absurdistan with too much glass and metal replacing replaceable batteries (both Notes still work today with 2nd and 3rd sets of batteries).But I’ve always longed to see another feature become mainstream usable, that these Notes started, albeit with serious functional limitations: Desktop or docking mode.
The Note 2 dock also worked with the Note 3 and it was the first that I tried to use for extra light business travel with a foldable BT keyboard even a BT mouse on an HDMI connected big screen. Mixed DPI support wasn’t quite up to snuff, even with custom ROMs that added Ethernet connectivity (security constraints mandated that in some cases).
In terms of computing power everything since the 820 has been enough for me in mobile use: If I really want to crunch numbers, I use HPC servers which I access via SSH, RDP or VNC and gaming is much more fun with an RTX 2080ti.
Phones as a VR headset replacement died far too quickly for my taste, my Le Max2 with its Le VR “luxury cardboard” companion still works pretty well, certainly for 3D movies.
So, the only reason I would even remotely consider buying one of these overpowered smartphones is if they could do double-duty as mid-line laptop replacements. Unless Corona’ed I switch countries every week and taking a €1200 smartphone instead of a €1200 laptop along for the ride, while enjoying a 43”@4k desktop in both offices has a great appeal, especially since RAM (16GB), storage (500GB) and compute power are similar enough to satisfy me.
I need both to handle the typical office/productivity stuff, surfing and the ability to access the big systems, be they compute farms or GeForce Now if I am in need for a monster kill. Yes, I love to be able to even run a Docker container in case I want to code something on the quick and up to chroot() that works pretty well with Android’s Linux kernel, even if it’s not quite as podman ready as the laptop.
Last Samsung I got was a Tab S5e a month ago and its DEX qualities are really much improved. It has perhaps 25% of the power and capacity of these phones (at 50% price) but shows what could obviously be done here. Yet I see no mention of DEX on the S20 and I fear that Samsung’s product management is…
The mere existence and perseverance of Exynos SoCs and rounded display edges prove that these people must be insane: Very sad, when you consider what the hardware could actually do!
In the mean-time I am holding on to a very nice OnePlus 5 as daily driver, lovingly protected with a silicon sleeve that sports an elevated ridge around a flat display thus kept from drop’s harm with grip and buffer space. When I take it out for a bit of soap and water treatment, it looks like new.
Chassis materials, colors, design, finger tip smudges? I couldn’t care less and the Note 1-3 removable plastic covers were plain perfect for longevity and flexibility.
Rorange68 - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
Great review.. somehow I haven’t seen these in the past but will watch for them now. Quick question... the chart on the first page shows all of the versions with dual sims.. a nano and esim. I was thinking of going for the Exynos because it’s been the only one listed as having dual sims but given the issues with 5g compatibility and the review you give it that seems like a really bad idea But if they all have dual sim it would make it a lot easier to leave my 10+ and get the 20+ or even splurge on the ultra on the chance they improve some of it via software updates.Rorange68 - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
*5g comparability between for the Exxon’s version and US carriersMarcSant - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
Outstanding! The Anandtech articles are simple the best, the definitive tech guide for all tech lovers. Keep up with the high level of these tech articles that in my opinion are the "must go" for all people that are interested in buy a gadget and see the "behind scenes" information that manufactures will not tell you.airdrifting - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
No thanks on overpriced, never last, slow update, buggy software Korean garbage.surt - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
Do they have a reputation for not lasting? I'm considering this for an upgrade from my Galaxy S6 which is still working fine but I'd like a better camera.airdrifting - Saturday, April 4, 2020 - link
I haven't tried the newer ones, but I owned Galaxy S1, Galaxy S3, LG G2 and G3, none lasted 2 years (G2 being the best one imo.). I switched to Oneplus after that. Oneplus 3T lasted almost 3 years, now I am rocking a Oneplus 7 which I paid $400 for on eBay.shabby - Sunday, April 5, 2020 - link
Lol how about you get a newer phone before bashing it.