The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Performance Preview: Sizing Up Cortex-X2
by Dr. Ian Cutress on December 14, 2021 8:00 AM ESTSystem-Wide Testing and Gaming
For our system wide tests, we had time to go through Geekbench 5, PCMark, and GFXBench. For workload based testing, we see performance uplifts with the S8g1, and it is a noting that here we tested PCMark with both performance mode on and off, which gave a +10% increase in the score – we’ve seen this before running PCMark on both Arm and x86 devices where turbo and favored cores can have large effects on scores. By contrast, GB5 scored the same.
In our PCMark tests, it's clear who the new ruler of the roost is.
On the graphics side, Qualcomm’s new number-less Adreno that is advertised as being ‘new from the ground up (but we won’t tell you how)’ again offers generational improvements for next year’s Android flagships. Qualcomm historically also offers better graphics performance per watt, so we’ll have to wait until we get the devices on hand to showcase that data. But overall, the gains in these tests show a large +50% performance jump over previous generation S888 graphics performance. In 2022, we'll have MediaTek’s flagship trying to aim for the same market but based on the Mali GPU, and graphics is an area that Qualcomm historically outpaces Mali designs quite easily. The only serious competitor in this space is Apple.
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Fulljack - Wednesday, December 15, 2021 - link
resale value is cool and all but not everyone bought a phone to be sold later down the road. just like how some people simply didn't like iOS and it's limitations.michael2k - Thursday, December 16, 2021 - link
Some people use the extended life of an iPhone for other things; that’s part of why they have high resale value.In other words people hand down three year old iPhones to kids or spouses. Some people want to keep their iPhones. Those people, as an example, refusing to let their iPhones go for sale increase the resale price by reducing supply in the face of demand.
iphonebestgamephone - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 - link
Iphones are pretty bad for gaming for more than a few minutes unless you have very low ambient temps or are willing to use a plugged to the wall phone cooler. Something like the redamgic or legion are better for mobile 'gamers'.hemedans - Wednesday, December 15, 2021 - link
I disagree, if you play games get android gaming phones, they can sustain perfomance compare to iphones which throttle a lot and mislead in lot of metrics (like operate in 120fps when you are on menu and drop to 60fps when you fight)Also with Android you get more games options, like now Ps2 emulator has been released, you wont find something like this in ios, also lot of pc games have been ported to Android, you can enjoy them on go.
yankeeDDL - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 - link
As an Android user, the results in Spec CPU 2017 are depressing.In every single test the X2 is far behind A15 (sometimes by nearly 2x) and yet in every single one the A15 uses less power. It is a bloodbath.
I realize the synthetic tests are not necessarily representative of use case, but it sure looks dismal for Qualcomm. They are extraordinarily behind.
Imagine if the next Galaxy S22 would use the A15: it would be 2-3 years ahead of all competition.
The lack of competition in high-end ARM-based CPU is just mind-boggling.
Wrs - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 - link
Yeah it seems very incremental on the CPU. They need a revolution just to catch up. But their GPU and NN seem like bigger leaps. Unfortunately both are more limited use cases - gaming and speech recognition primarily.Kangal - Sunday, December 19, 2021 - link
With the way Qualcomm has followed with the Wattage, they've only been achieving better and better scores at the expense of battery and heat. Basically they've embraced throttling. And that's not an acceptable solution for phones.There's little to no performance difference between the QSD 855 to its siblings*. And that seems to be the case with the new Snapdragon 8gen1 for 2022. The biggest difference I can see is at the highest-end emulation, which is to run the latest console, with the highest graphical title, and scale up resolution as appropriate. Currently, this is the Nintendo Wii, running Metroid 3 Prime, and upscaled to x4 (1440p). On the fastest Android Phones (eg ASUS RoG 5) it runs around 50-60fps depending on the scene. On something like a Samsung S10+ you're instead getting 40-50fps. And the bigger improvement can come from the natural progression of the emulator itself (ie 2018 vs 2021), and by running Mods on it like MMJ. So these things can/do bridge the performance difference that I stated above.
What might be a good argument to be made, is when we get other more powerful/demanding use cases. Such as comparing Nintendo Switch emulation, running desktop programs, or even getting a new AAA-game that was developed for the handheld (eg GTA 6). Anyways, we will see a separation from current performance tier, at the earliest with 2023 using second-generation ARM Europe microarchitecture. Android hasn't quite caught up to Apple A13 levels of performance yet, and that's what I think when we will surpass it (Apple's A14 and A15 aren't that much better than their A13 either).
*855+, 860, 778, 780, 865, 865+, 870, 888, 888+.
Wereweeb - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 - link
When I can use it as a desktop replacement I'll start to care. Until then, all you get with a "muh faster CPU" is your apps take three nanoseconds less time to open.My next phone will be the GAA-FET (3-2nm) successor to the 780G, for the better energy-efficiency. If it takes five years, so be it. I don't game so I don't have a use for X2 cores.
1_rick - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 - link
"When I can use it as a desktop replacement I'll start to care."DeX, dude. It's already good enough for light work.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, December 14, 2021 - link
Also limited to samsung devices. Perhaps Wereweeb has no interest in owning one of their devices. There are many that have no interest in owning a samsung based on past experiences.