Qualcomm has released synthetic benchmark results of its new flagship Snapdragon 888 processor since reviewers were not able to get their hands on a reference device at the recently concluded Snapdragon Tech Summit 2020. The chip-maker announced the Snapdragon 888 on the first day of the summit as it gave a glimpse of what’s coming to the flagship smartphones of 2021.
Qualcomm conducted a series of synthetic benchmark tests on a reference design powered by the Snapdragon 888 chip and looks like we have yet another winner at our hands. However, Qualcomm reiterated its stand on using benchmark apps as it believes that “they only measure a subset of use cases and fail to capture the wide array of experiences enabled by Snapdragon, including connectivity, photography, videography, audio, battery life and charging speeds, and more.”
Before we check out how the Snapdragon 888 performed in the benchmarks, the reference design used for these tests features a 6.65-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) resolution display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The phone is powered by the Qualcomm 888 5G processor with an octa-core CPU running at up to 2.84GHz and is paired with 12GB LPDDR5 RAM module and 512GB storage. The device was powered by a 3,780mAh battery and has a Type-C 3.1 Gen2 port.
Qualcomm ran each test three times so the scores shared are the average result from three iterations. The Snapdragon 888 powered device scored 735439 points on AnTuTu benchmark which is more than the score of the current leaderboard champion Huawei Mate 40 Pro with a score of 661059 points. The score of the Snapdragon 888 is around 21 percent more than the Snapdragon 865+ powered Asus ROG Phone 3 and 26% more than the Snapdragon 865 on the OnePlus 8T.
On Geekbench single-core tests, the Snapdragon 888 was awarded 1135 points and 3794 points on multi-core tests. As per the leaderboard, OnePlus 8 currently leads the pack with 886 single-core points, 3201 multi-core score and Snapdragon 865 under the hood. In comparison to our Geekbench scores of the ROG Phone 3 and OnePlus 8T, the Snapdragon 888 has 18% increase in scores over the Snapdragon 865+ and 28% over the Snapdragon 865. Similarly, the Snapdragon 888 has registered a 17% and 24% increase in scores over the Snapdragon 865+ and 865, respectively.
What remains to be seen is how smartphone manufacturers utilize the power of the Snapdragon 888 and optimize it to drive performance and efficiency on smartphones in 2021. Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is manufactured using the 5nm process and is the first commercial SoC that is based on the Arm Cortex-X1 architecture as it features the Kryo 680 CPU running at up to 2.84GHz. There’s the Adreno 660 GPU for graphics rendering and is touted to deliver up to 35% faster graphics rendering over the Adreno 650 GPU. Together, the Kryo 680 CPU and Adreno 660 GPU offers sustained peak performance over time.
Many smartphone manufacturers including the likes of Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus and Oppo have already revealed their plans of launching a phone powered by the Snapdragon 888 in early 2021.