Final Words

Qualcomm tends to stagger the introduction of new CPU and GPU IP. Snapdragon 805 ultimately serves as Qualcomm's introduction vehicle for its Adreno 420 GPU. The performance gains there over Adreno 330/Snapdragon 801 can be substantial, particularly at high resolutions and/or higher quality settings. Excluding 3DMark, we saw a 20 - 50% increase in GPU performance compared to Snapdragon 801. Adreno 420 is a must have if you want to drive a higher resolution display at the same performance as an Adreno 330/1080p display combination. With OEMs contemplating moving to higher-than-1080p resolution screens in the near term, leveraging Snapdragon 805 may make sense there.

The gains on the CPU side are far more subtle. At best we noted a 6% increase in performance compared to a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, but depending on thermal/chassis limitations of shipping devices you may see even less of a difference.

Qualcomm tells us that some of its customers will choose to stay on Snapdragon 801 until the 810 arrives next year, while some will choose to release products based on 805 in the interim. Based on our results here, if an OEM is looking to specifically target the gaming market I can see Snapdragon 805 making a lot of sense. For most of those OEMs that just launched Snapdragon 801 based designs however, I don't know that there's a huge reason to release a refresh in the interim.

I am curious to evaluate the impact of ISP changes as well as dive deeper into 4K capture and H.265 decode, but that will have to wait until we see shipping designs. The other big question is just how power efficient Adreno 420 is compared to Adreno 330. Qualcomm's internal numbers are promising, citing a 20% reduction in power consumption at effectively the same performance in GFXBench's T-Rex HD onscreen test.

GPU Performance
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  • leexgx - Monday, May 26, 2014 - link

    the stock browser is normally not Chrome (unless its Pure Android device or Sony phone) its normally the webkit browser? (not checked what its called)

    i find chrome a power hog (i use Opera mini most of the time any way that infact is for most part worst then the stock android browser, but strips all scripts from the website so you get a static page no CPU use or lag at all)
  • akdj - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    I'm not sure where you got your S5...I've got an S5 and Note 3. BOTH are MUCH quicker with Chrome, Dolphin, Mercury...or any numerous third party browsers than the crappy Samsung 'stock' "Internet" browser. It's CRAP! If there's a link you could share with the stock Sammy browser 'beating' the latest iOS device benchmarks on the A7/IT platform. Sorry, but as a LONG time TouchWiz owner and user it's definitely the FIRST omitted 'default' option. Then. Keyboard;)
    Don't worry. Sounds like you seem to think someone is going to buy their phone based off a Sunspider test only? That doesn't make any sense. While the iOS platforms with the A7 are certainly holding their own eight months after release, the tests I eras were definitely not dominated by the iOS silicon right now. I own the iPhone 5s and Air and can honestly say regardless of benchmark results or numbers, tests and objective reviews, the iOS devices generation compared to the same generation of TouchWiz FLATTEN the latter when it comes to browsing speed, UI fluidity and overall general 'speed'. My wife has the iPhone 5 and the Samsung S5. Me the 5s and Note3. It's irrelevant which browser you use, iOS is definitely the quicker populating browser (I actually prefer iCab IR Mercury to Safari...regardless of Apples' decision to not allow access to Nitro, they're JUST as quick). While I LOVE my Note for the actual browsing 'experience' in comparison to the iPhone, the intrigue for me is the larger display and the ability to use the stylus for sketching rigging points for clients, credit cards and my old eyes. I love em both but there's NO WAY without a link you're gonna convince me that POS stock Sammy browser beats ANYTHING! Lol. Android. iOS. I'm a fan of both. BUT some things are better on one or the other's OS, UI and overall compatibility with whatever tools you're using.
    Sorry. Others have beat me to it. Took to long. Android is MASSIVE ...And while Samsung makes up a large percentage of 'sales' they're not all flagships. Tons of 2.xx devices still on the market and pay by month kiosks, other countries, etc. not all Sammy's have the same TouchWiz browser nor do ANY of the other OEMs. Chrome, by default...it's Google (Android's) true 'stock' browser and it's a helluva lot faster than the crap that comes with TW. I've found Dolphin and Merc to be my faves, simply because Chrome still doesn't allow text resizing
    J
  • sachouba - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link

    My Samsung Galaxy S5 has a score of 391ms at Sunspider using the stock browser from Samsung and ART Runtime. This stock browser used to be crap, but the new version of it coming with the Galaxy S5 has been really improved. I used to use Chrome instead of it, but now Samsung's stock browser is far faster.
  • Kidster3001 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link

    Browser benchmarks are in no way a good benchmark of CPU performance, even with the same browser on different devices. Browser benchmarks test many things. Raw CPU performance is not one of them.
  • Flunk - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link

    I think you might not know what your'e talking about. The Samsung Android browser just uses the old Android Opensource project stack. It's not very standards compliant and pretty slow. A lot of web applications don't ever support it anymore.
  • darkich - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link

    Exactly.
    Galaxy S5 with STOCK (Samsung) browser scores way better than on Chrome.
    A record-setting 370ms on Sunspider!

    Note 3 gets around 500ms.

    Uselless and very biased job, Anand
  • rubene66 - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    Snapdragon always slow web browsing tegra k1 will be better
  • tipoo - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    Is the RAM package on package, or is it right in the die as the first image implies?
  • tipoo - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    I'm guessing if that is an actual die shot, it's just the interface to the RAM, as the RAM would have to be bigger.
  • mavere - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link

    So no 20nm Snapdragons until 2015?

    Is anyone besides Apple expected to have a 20nm mobile SoC on the market this year?

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