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The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Exynos 2200 variants of Samsung‘s upcoming Galaxy S22 Ultra, bearing model numbers SM-S908U and SM-S908B respectively, were pit against each other in a Geekbench test recently. The scores are surprisingly comparable, suggesting a close battle between the two variants, which is good news for us users.
The Exynos-powered Galaxy S22 Ultra scored 1,168 points in the single-core Geekbench test. The Snapdragon variant marginally topped it with a score of 1,226. However, the former outperformed the latter in the multi-core test, though not by a very big margin (3,508 vs. 3,462).
Task-wise breakdown of these tests reveals that the balance swung in favor of one and the other constantly. The Snapdragon variant came out on top in most tasks in single-core tests but the Exynos counterpart made up for the lost ground in multi-core tests. You can see the detailed test results in this Geekbench listing.
Samsung may have finally resolved its Exynos woes
Samsung’s flagship phones usually come with either its in-house Exynos or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor depending on the market. The upcoming Galaxy S22 series will be no different. The new phones will feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset in markets like the US, China, South Korea, and Japan. But in European and African regions, the devices will run on the Exynos 2200 SoC.
The company was called on for this practice in the past due to the apparent performance gap between the competing Snapdragon and Exynos chips. However, Samsung has seemingly closed that gap this year. On paper, the Exynos 2200 looks as good as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, if not better. This Geekbench benchmark test now suggests the same.
Both are 4nm chipsets featuring ARM’s latest v9 architecture. The CPU core arrangement is identical too: one Cortex X2 super core, three Cortex A710 mid-cores, and four Cortex A510 low-power cores. Perhaps these similarities are reflected in this benchmark test.
However, the Exynos 2200 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vary in one important department: GPU. The former features AMD’s RDNA 2-based GPU while the latter has the Adreno 730 GPU for graphics duties. Since Geekbench benchmarks primarily test the CPU performance of devices, these scores don’t tell much about the graphics prowess of the two Galaxy S22 Ultra variants. Hopefully, Samsung has moved on from its past Exynos woes for once and all, in all departments.
The Galaxy S22 series will go official next week, on February 9. The upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event will also bring along the Galaxy tab S8 series. Stay tuned.
