Snapdragon 820 Beats Exynos 8890 in Graphics Performance, Based on Antutu Benchmark Scores

"Sir Mark, how does Samsung Galaxy S7 Exynos 8890 version that we have here in the Philippines compare against the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 powered variant that's available in the US?"

"The official SGS7 model in PH already runs specs-intensive 3D games just as well as the Apple iPhone 6S. But I heard the Snapdragon 820 counterpart is even better. Is that true, Mark?"

"Should Filipinos feel bad that we're getting the Exynos version of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge?"

These are just some questions that I've gotten from my friends and readers since February 21, 2016 when the Korean Giant officially announced its two flagship-level smartphones this year.

Well, last March 2, 2016, the team behind the popular mobile benchmarking app - Antutu - posted the graph below on their official website, showing how the 2016 top-of-the-line smartphone processors compare against each other in terms of raw graphics performance.

Snapdragon 820 vs 810 GPU, Snapdragon 820 vs Exynos 8890 GPU, Snapdragon 820 vs Apple A9 GPU, Exynos 8890 vs Apple A9 Graphics, Snapdragon 820 vs 810 Graphics

According to Antutu, "In recent years, smartphones are attaching increasing importance to the GPU performance, since the Graphics Processing Unit performance is closely related to the game performance and using fluency of a mobile phone, and it has a direct impact on users’ actual experience. Currently, the GPU with the highest performance is Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (with its Adreno 530 graphics chip), and its GPU score has already reached a score of more than 55,000. Samsung Exynos 8890 (Mali-T880 MP12) [that powers the Philippine version of Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge] nearly equals Apple A9 (PowerVR GT7600) [inside Apple iPhone 6s and 6s Plus]. As for HiSilicon Kirin 950 (Mali-T880 MP4) [powering Huawei Mate 8] that is well known to all, its GPU performance is not good enough, and its GPU results are similar to Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 (Adreno418) and Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 (Adreno 510)."

So I guess that pretty much answers most of your graphics performance questions about the two chipsets at the heart of Samsung's new high-end handsets.

Now, for those who are asking, "Why can't Samsung just use one processor for Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge?"

To quote PC World, "The homegrown Exynos chip is cheaper for Samsung to integrate in its handsets, [...] Carriers also influence the chip decision in some cases, but the Snapdragon 820 is expensive because it's a premium processing unit. The chips are [also] tied to cellular technology and spectrum use in different countries. Qualcomm's chip is tuned for carrier aggregation in the U.S., in which data transfer speeds could receive a big boost by aggregating bandwidth from multiple bands and carriers. This technology is helpful for dual-SIM handsets with connectivity to two carriers. Samsung's Exynos also supports carrier aggregation, but it is optimized to work on specific networks."

Apart from the American and European versions of Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 also powers the modular flagship LG G5, Sony Xperia X Performance, Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro, HTC One M10, and Vivo XPlay 5 Elite.