Flagship smartphones are the most expensive, feature top of line spec sheets, boast great cameras, and are the most desirable smartphones out there. However, it is what lies under the skin that makes them flagships –the chipset.
There are many chipset manufacturers out there that offer chipsets at varying levels of the smartphone pyramid. And the king of the chipset kingdom is none other than Qualcomm. They supply flagship and mid-level chipsets, to all the Android smartphone giants like Samsung, One Plus.
Samsung is undeniably one of the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturers and manufactures a chipset of its own — Exynos. Although it features the Snapdragon chipset in its devices, it also includes the Exynos in some batches, depending on the region.
Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 845, in 2017 and it first debuted in the Samsung Galaxy S9 series. Samsung introduced its Exynos 9610 chipset with the launch of the Galaxy A50 in June last year. So we’ve pitted the two chipsets to see how they stack up against each other.
Also read: Exynos 9610 vs Snapdragon 675 vs Helio P70
Semiconductor Size
Semiconductors’ size is crucial, and manufacturers strive to develop smaller semiconductors, offering better performance and reduced power consumption.
In terms of semiconductor size, both the Snapdragon 845 and the Exynos 9610 are fabricated using Samsung’s 10nm LPP process and 10nm FinFet processes, respectively.
Hence they exhibit similar performance and power consumption due to being built on the same architecture.
CPU
The 9610 features eight cores consisting of four Cortex-A73 big cores operating at up to 2.3GHz and four Cortex-A53 little cores operating at up to 1.6GHz.
The 845, on the other hand, features four Kryo 385 Silver high-efficiency cores operating at 1.7GHz along with four high-performance Kryo 385 Gold cores operating at 2.8GHz.
The higher clock speeds of the 845 speak for themselves, and thus the 845 offers 17.18% faster CPU speed than that of the 9610.
GPU and RAM
The Snapdragon 845 features an Adreno 630 GPU while the Exynos settles for the Mali-G72 MP3 GPU.
In terms of RAM requirements both use LPDDR4X RAM type. However, the Snapdragon has a higher RAM speed of 1866MHz with support for up to 8GB of RAM compared to the Exynos, which has 1600MHz with support for up to 6 GB of RAM.
The faster RAM speed results in quicker performance giving the 845 the edge in this regard.
Also read: Kirin 710 vs Snapdragon 660
Benchmark (Antutu )
The Snapdragon 845 returned a score of 264823(Samsung Galaxy S9+) while the Exynos returned a benchmark score of 151136 ( Samsung Galaxy A50) on the Antutu listing. The 845 is the more superior chipset a result of having higher clock speeds.
Camera
Exynos 9610 supports a single 24MP rear camera or dual 16MP+16MP rear cameras, and a single 24MP or dual 16MP+16MP front cameras.
The Snapdragon 845 has support for a single 32MP or dual 16MP+16MP rear cameras, and the same goes for the front camera support.
Miscellaneous
Both these chipsets feature similar specs in most regards. Additionally, the Snapdragon also features out-of-order execution used in CPUs to make use of instruction cycles that would usually be wasted due to delays.
Thus the Snapdragon 845 with is faster CPU and RAM speed and support for an addition 2 GB of RAM over the 9610, comes out as the winner of this battle.
| Category | Exynos 9610 | Snapdragon 845 |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Up to 2.3GHz Quad-core (Cortex-A73) + Up to 1.7GHz Quad-core (Cortex-A53) | Kryo 385 CPU; Octa-core CPU; CPU Speed: up to 2.8 GHz |
| GPU | Mali-G72 MP3 | Adreno 630 GPU |
| Benchmark Scores | 151136 ( Samsung Galaxy A50) | 264823(Samsung Galaxy S9+) |
| Camera | Rear: 24MP, Front: 24MP, Dual Camera: 16+16MP | Dual Camera: 16 + 16 MP; Single Camera (60 fps): upto 16 MP: Single Camera (30 fps): upto 32 MP |
| Memory | LPDDR4x | LPDDR4x |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Display | WQXGA (2560×1600) | 4K Ultra HD |
Also read: Snapdragon 865 5G vs 855+ vs 855: 4 talking points
