Today, Qualcomm unveiled its newest flagship smartphone chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite. It is the company's first smartphone processor to use its in-house Oryon CPU cores and its first-ever 3nm chip. How does it compare to Samsung's current-generation flagship chip, the Exynos 2400?
Snapdragon 8 Elite vs Exynos 2400: Specifications comparison
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a 3nm chip made by TSMC, while the Exynos 2400 chip is a 4nm chip made by Samsung Foundry. Since chips made by TSMC are generally more power-efficient for the same generation process, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is likely to be considerably more power-efficient than the Exynos 2400.
Qualcomm's new chip has two prime CPU cores clocked at 4.32GHz and six performance CPU cores clocked at 3.53GHz. In comparison, the Exynos 2400 has a 10-core CPU featuring one Cortex-X4 prime CPU core clocked at 3.2GHz, two Cortex-A720 performance CPU cores clocked at 2.9GHz, three Cortex-A720 performance CPU cores running at 2.6GHz, and four Cortex-A520 CPU cores clocked at 1.95GHz.
Both chips are compatible with LPDDR5x DRAM and UFS 4.0 storage. Since the Snapdragon 8 Elite has newer-generation CPU cores, it will likely be much faster than the Exynos 2400 in CPU performance.
Qualcomm calls the GPU inside the Snapdragon 8 Elite ‘Adreno,' but internally, it is likely called the Adreno 830. It offers 40% faster graphics processing performance and 35% faster ray tracing performance. The Xclipse 940 GPU inside the Exynos 2400 is based on AMD's RDNA3 technology.
While both GPUs are fast, the Snapdragon 8 Elite's is more powerful. It also features AI-powered frame generation and AI-powered upscaling. However, while the Xclipse 940 can drive 4K screens at 120Hz, the Adreno GPU can only drive 4K screens at 60Hz. It's a surprising limitation, though it's unlikely to matter in the real world.
The story continues after our Exynos 2400e video below.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite has a triple 18-bit ISP (image signal processor) and can capture 320MP images. The ISP can simultaneously process images from three 48MP cameras with no shutter lag, which is extremely impressive. It can record 8K 30fps or 4K 120fps videos, which the ISP inside the Exynos is capable of as well.
Exynos 2400, as a current-gen chip, is understandably behind Qualcomm's next-gen chip
Both chips have a built-in 5G modem with theoretical download and upload speeds of up to 10Gbps and 3.5Gbps respectively. They also feature GPS, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth LE Audio, NFC, and USB Type-C. However, the Snapdragon 8 Elite features Bluetooth 6.0, while the Exynos 2400 features Bluetooth 5.3.
Overall, the Exynos 2400 is a very good chipset, but it is still a current-generation chip. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a newer-generation chip with newer CPU cores, a newer GPU, and a more powerful NPU. Moreover, it is made using TSMC's 3nm process, which is a superior technology.
In short, the Snapdragon 8 Elite lives up to its name, and whether Samsung will have a comparable Exynos chip next year remains to be seen.
