The Exynos 990 processor that was used in the Galaxy S20 series last year faced heavy criticism due to its dismal performance under sustained workloads. Earlier this month, Samsung promised that its new Exynos 2100 processor offers faster and much more stable performance compared to its previous chipsets. Now that the first smartphones with the Exynos 2100 chipset have been released, we can compare the performance of the Exynos 2100 with that of the Exynos 990.
A newly published video on YouTube shows the gaming performance of the Galaxy S21's Exynos 2100 chipset and that of the Galaxy S20's Exynos 990 processor under sustained workloads. The test shows the Call Of Duty: Mobile game being played on the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Galaxy S20+ with very high graphics quality and maximum frame rate settings. At the end of the video, you can see that the Exynos 2100 delivered 10% higher frame rates on average when compared to the Exynos 990. However, the Exynos 2100 delivered much more stable frame rates, with only an 11fps difference between the minimum and maximum frame rates.
There was much less jank and stutter during the gameplay on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. The Exynos 2100 also consumed less power than the Exynos 990, which means that the newer Exynos chipset has more stable performance, higher power efficiency, and lower temperatures. It seems that Samsung has been successful in delivering a better chipset than last year. However, it is still not as good as the Snapdragon 888 processor from Qualcomm, which is used in the China and US variants of the Galaxy S21 series.