Qualcomm revealed its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip last week, and is expected to start popping up in smartphones in the coming weeks, as well as throughout 2022.
During our time at the Qualcomm Tech Summit, we were able to go hands-on with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 reference design phone and run it through a number of benchmark tests. This allows us to get a rough idea of what kind of performance the chip is capable of, but it’s also worth remembering that performance will differ between phones.
We conducted the below Geekbench 5 results ourselves for comparison. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 showed a 20% CPU performance boost compared to the Snapdragon 888, which is exactly what Qualcomm claimed.
| Qualcomm reference design | iPhone 13 Pro Max | Galaxy S21 Ultra | |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Apple A15 Bionic | Snapdragon 888 |
| Geekbench 5 single-core | 1226 | 1727 | 1029 |
| Geekbench 5 multi-core | 3797 | 4453 | 3148 |
However, Apple’s A15 Bionic chip still seems to hold the edge as far as the CPU is concerned, with a 17% performance advantage.
So is the Apple A15 Bionic a faster chip than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1? It’s hard to be sure. We also ran the Snapdragon chip through the Antutu benchmark which tells a different story. It’s worth pointing out here that we collected the scores for the iPhone 13 Pro Max and Galaxy S21 Ultra via Antutu’s database, as this benchmark isn’t in our standard test process.
| Qualcomm reference design | iPhone 13 Pro Max | Galaxy S21 Ultra | |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Apple A15 Bionic | Snapdragon 888 |
| Antutu Overall | 1,015,007 | 842,234 | 782,652 |
| Antutu CPU | 231,167 | 217,424 | 204,700 |
| Antutu GPU | 443,072 | 328,765 | 292,727 |
| Antutu Memory | 170,901 | 161,237 | 136,034 |
| Antutu UX | 169,867 | 134,808 | 149,191 |
Curiously, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 beat the Apple A15 Bionic in every single test here, including the CPU test. Unlike Geekbench, Antutu tests the performance of the entire phone, including the likes of memory and GPU.
That said, Antutu has previously warned that its benchmark results shouldn’t be compared between Android and iOS, as it’s an “unfair comparison”. Meanwhile, Geekbench 5 prides itself as a “cross-platform benchmark” so should theoretically show a more accurate representation of the performance difference.
But either way, it’s still impressive reading for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, showing significant gains on its predecessor and taking the Android performance ceiling to new heights. And let’s not forget the new chip allows for many new features such as 8K HDR video recording, video bokeh effects and background noise suppression when on a voice call. Check out out our Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 hub for all the details.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
