iPhones have always had an upper hand in terms of CPU performance. In fact, Apple's smartphones have been 2-3 generations ahead of flagship Android smartphones from the likes of Samsung, OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi. Even this year, the iPhone 15 Pro is at least 28% faster than the fastest Android smartphone chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. But all that is set to change next year if a new analyst report is to be believed.
Exynos or Snapdragon, Galaxy S25 could beat iPhone 16 Pro in CPU performance
All the processors used inside Android smartphones use ARM's Cortex CPU cores. This year's flagship smartphone chips use the Cortex-X4 CPU core, which is around 25-30% slower than the custom ARM-based CPU core used by the iPhone 15 Pro. This is a combination of Apple's custom CPU architecture and a more advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing process. Later this year, like clockwork, ARM is expected to unveil the Cortex-X5 CPU core, and it will be used in processors from MediaTek and Samsung. Qualcomm could go its separate way and implement its homegrown Nuvia custom CPU core in its next flagship chipset. According to a research report from Moor Insights and Strategy (via Android Authority), ARM has “an audacious plan to have the best smartphone CPU core” in 2025. Codenamed “Blackhawk,” the possible Cortex-X5 CPU core is expected to bring the largest year-over-year performance gains in the past five years.
The Cortex-X1 was ARM's biggest performance jump, and it came in 2020. With the Cortex-X5, ARM could defeat Apple in terms of CPU performance. According to the report, ARM's plan is to “eliminate the performance gap between Arm-designed processors and custom Arm implementations.” Here, ARM implementation points to Apple's custom implementation of ARM design that is usually used in iPhones and iPads. However, nothing has been revealed about the power efficiency of this Blackhawk CPU core from ARM. It is important that the power consumption stays low even with high performance, similar to Apple's chips.
The Cortex-X5 CPU core will likely be used inside the 3nm Exynos 2500 chipset that will power most Galaxy S25 series phones. The remaining Galaxy S25 units will likely use the 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which is expected to feature Qualcomm's in-house Oryon CPU core. This in-house CPU design has shown immense promise, and it could also match or beat Apple's single-core CPU performance. So, if the report from Moor Insights and Strategy is on point, both Exynos and Snapdragon versions of the Galaxy S25 could beat the iPhone 16 Pro in CPU performance next year. The Galaxy S25 is expected to bring several other improvements, including better cameras, better hardware-software integration, and software fluidity.
Watch our long-term Galaxy S23 Ultra review in the video below to see how it has fared in terms of performance, battery life, and software stability since its launch.
Author's Note: Some Galaxy S25 units will likely use the Exynos 2500 (tentative naming) processor that Samsung is designing in-house through its System LSI business arm. Some reports claim that the upcoming Exynos 2500 processor is being custom-made for the Galaxy S25 series. Earlier Exynos chips have been made in such a way that any smartphone brand could use them (it's another issue that no brand other than Samsung actually ends up using them).
Since the tailor-made approach is reportedly being used for the Exynos 2500, industry insiders believe that it will have better hardware-software integration as well as better performance, efficiency, and stability compared to what we're used to seeing from Exynos chips every year. They are always slightly (sometimes more) inferior to their Snapdragon counterparts in terms of performance and/or efficiency. The addition of the Cortex-X5 CPU core could help the chip even more. Samsung is looking to make a splash with the Galaxy S25, and all things are appearing as if they're coming together to make that happen. Expectations are quite high for the Galaxy S25, but only time will tell how good the smartphone will be and how it could change Samsung's fortunes.
