Qualcomm’s current flagship, Snapdragon 888, Samsung’s new and improved Exynos 2100, and Apple’s latest A14 Bionic are currently the best three processors for smartphones. But, how do they stack up against each other?
Here is the detailed comparison between all three chipsets. All three chipsets are built 5nm processors which have significantly improved performance over the 7nm processors. Aside from performance, we also need to consider battery efficiency, thermal management, and tons of other features.
Snapdragon 860 vs Snapdragon 865 Full benchmark comparison
CPU
First, let’s talk about the CPU. Samsung Exynos 2100 has an Octa-core processor. The main core is ARM Cortex -X1 clocking at 2.9GHz. it’s backed by Three 2.8GHz Cortex -A78 for multi-core performance. It also has four 2.2GHz Cortex -A55 for energy-efficient tasks in the smartphone.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 also has the same CPU as Exynos 2100. The main difference is the clock speed. The 1xCortex -X1 is running at 2.84GHz, 2xCortex -A78 is at 2.42GHz, and 4xCortex -A55 is at 1.8GHz.
Apple A14 Bionic uses its own custom CPU for the chipset. It has a 6-core CPU, two less than the other two. However, it has two main performance cores(Firestorm @2.99GHz) instead of one. The rest 4 is for power efficiency(Icestorm @1.8GHz).
Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 vs Snapdragon 860
GPU
Speaking of GPU, Snapdragon 888 uses its own designed Qualcomm Adreno 660. Exynos 2100 has 14 core Mali-G78 MP14. Apple also uses its own custom-made GPU in A14 Bionic.
Display Resolution & Media
The max display resolution is 3840 x 2160 pixels on Snapdragon 888, 4096 x 2160 pixels on Exynos 2100, and 2732 x 2048 pixels on A14.
Out of all three, only A14 doesn’t support 8K video recording. Qualcomm offers 8K video recording at 30fps, while Samsung can go up to 60fps.
Snapdragon 888’s Spectra 580 image processor and Exynos 2100 both support up to 200-megapixel camera. The max camera megapixel on A14 is unknown.
AI
All three chips have heavy improvements in AI performance. Apple A14 has a 16-core Neural engine which they claim to be 80% faster than the previous 8-core Neural engine on A13.
Samsung’s Exynos 2100 has triple-core NPU with 26 TOPS computing power. Snapdragon 888 has Hexagon 780 with also 26 TOPS.
Connectivity
Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 both have Bluetooth 5.2, while A14 Bionic only has Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. All three have 5G supports, however, based on what we heard Samsung’s 5G seems a little faster than others.
Power efficiency
At 6W TDP, A14 is the most power-efficient. Probably why Apple provides smaller batteries in iPhone 12 series smartphones. Exynos 2100 has 9W TDP and Snapdragon 888 has the highest of all three 10W TDP.
Snapdragon 888 vs A14 Bionic vs Exynos 2100 Benchmarks
We took a look at some on-paper specs. Now let’s go look at some actual benchmark numbers.
| Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon 888) | Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G (Exynos 2100) | iPhone 12 Pro Max(A14) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu(Overall) | 680129 | 638261 | 646167 |
| AnTuTu(CPU) | 187099 | 174659 | 179035 |
| AnTuTu(GPU) | 285061 | 254783 | 263026 |
| AnTuTu(Memory) | 116186 | 125763 | 109485 |
| Ai-Benchmark | 237.3 | 170.4 | unavailable |
| GeekBench (Single-core) | 1123 | 1079 | 1567 |
| GeekBench (Multi-core) | 3869 | 3546 | 3828 |
| 3DMark | 5378 | 5219 | 6628 |
If you take a look at benchmarks Snapdragon 888 is leading in every category except single-core performance. A14 Bionic has a huge lead in single-core performance, the other two don’t even come close. Exynos 2100 has quite a performance improvement over the last gen but it still has some catching up to do.
Gaming Performance
How well snapdragon 888, A14 Bionic, and Exynos 2100 compare with each other in Gaming performance? Well, they all handle smartphone gaming like a boss, capable of delivering 60fps in most games. All three chipsets deliver almost the same performance. The fps difference is very low, just about 2-4fps in different games, which isn’t really noticeable. But there other things like battery drain and temperature.
After about 30 minutes of gaming iPhone 12 Pro with A14 sits around 94% battery life and 32C temperature. Samsung Galaxy S21(Snapdragon 888) was at 31C and 95% battery and Exynos 2100 variant were at 34C and 92% battery.
Now keep in mind that temperature and battery drainage is different based on different games. For example, In the PUBG mobile, iPhone 12(A14) Pro handles temperature better and drains less battery than Samsung Galaxy S21(Exynos 2100). However, in Genshin Impact things were quite opposite.
All in all, they don’t have many gaps in temperature and battery life. But if we had to rank then Snapdragon 888 would be number one, A14 will be close second and Exynos 2100 would be third.
Another thing you should know is that both Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 come in a smartphone that supports a 120Hz display while A14 Bionic is stuck with a 60Hz display smartphone.
Snapdragon 888 vs a14 is a real competition, Exynos 2100 is far behind