World premiere! Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 performance test: tops the charts without a doubt

At the Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit in December 2017, Qualcomm officially released its new flagship mobile platform Snapdragon 845, which is arguably the most powerful mobile SoC on the planet, at least on paper.

In terms of specifications, the Snapdragon 845 is built with Samsung's 10nm LPP process and has been upgraded to the Kryo 385 core. It still has an octa-core architecture. The four large cores can reach a maximum frequency of 2.8GHz, with a performance improvement of 25%-30%; the four small cores can reach a frequency of 1.8GHz, with a performance improvement of 15%.

In terms of GPU, Snapdragon 845 has been upgraded to Adreno 630, which has a 30% performance improvement, a 30% energy efficiency improvement, and a 2.5-fold increase in video processing efficiency compared to the previous generation.

In terms of algorithms, Adreno 630 supports focus algorithm technology, which can intelligently identify the focus point of the human eye and focus on rendering this part, thereby saving power. This technology, combined with visual tracking, can ensure that the focus part is still in the best rendering state no matter how the camera moves.

In terms of ISP, the Snapdragon 845 integrates the second-generation ISP chip Spectra 280, which focuses on improving the performance in low-light environments and is said to bring the best video shooting experience. At the same time, it is also the first mobile platform to support ultra-high-quality video, with a frame rate of up to 60fps, claiming to bring Hollywood-level picture quality experience.

At the same time, Snapdragon 845 is Qualcomm's third-generation commercial AI platform. Qualcomm has already added AI-related features to the previous two generations of products, but it did not focus on them.

On the Snapdragon 845, the Kryo architecture CPU supports FP32 and INT8, and the Adreno GPU supports FP32 and FP16, which provide the basis for neural network computing.

Qualcomm's own DSP is the protagonist of AI computing. It supports HVX and INT8, and can achieve more efficient computing power, which is three times that of Snapdragon 835.

Qualcomm believes that the highest level of AI is AI that users cannot feel. On the Snapdragon 845 platform, Qualcomm has opened up all interfaces through software, and all AI-related functions can be implemented through one API.

In the Snapdragon 845's security and encryption chip, Qualcomm has added the HLOS operating system to provide operating system security support, while also supporting the TrustZone hardware-level security protection mode. All data related to security and privacy, such as fingerprints, are handled by TrustZone.

Qualcomm calls the entire security part SPU (Secure Processing Unit), which has an independent processor, memory, etc. to achieve independent calculations, so the security level is higher and can resist more attacks.

Although the overall specifications of Snapdragon 845 seem very powerful, this is just paper data. The lack of actual test results to support it always makes people feel that something is missing.

Moreover, there have been many doubts about Snapdragon 845 on the Internet before, such as whether the second-generation 10nm process can suppress the high frequency of Snapdragon 845, whether the seemingly minor upgrade of the architecture can bring up to 30% performance improvement, etc.

Today, all the answers are basically revealed. In early February, Qualcomm held the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 benchmark debut event at its headquarters in San Diego, USA. As one of the invited media, I was fortunate enough to participate in this event. Here are the relevant test results for you.

As there is no Snapdragon 845 related model released yet, the test used Qualcomm's official Snapdragon 845 development prototype, which is equipped with a 5.7-inch 2K screen, a Snapdragon 845 processor, 8GB of built-in memory, and only 10GB of body storage space, running native Android 8.0.

The comparison processors include Snapdragon 835 (Xiaomi 6), Exynos 8895 (Galaxy S8) and Kirin 970 (Mate 10). Since the configurations of each model are slightly different, the test results are only for reference.

At the same time, it should be noted that the performance of the development prototype does not represent the performance of the final tested model. It is well known that OnePlus's performance tuning is relatively aggressive. Xiaomi has not focused on optimizing running scores in the past two years, while Samsung and HTC are well-known for "negative optimization."

Therefore, the final Snapdragon 845 phone may have slightly higher or lower performance than the development prototype, but the overall gap should not be too obvious.

AnTuTu:

As the most popular benchmark tool, the performance of Snapdragon 845 in AnTuTu is amazing.

In comparison, the performances of Snapdragon 835, Exynos 8895 and Kirin 970 in AnTuTu 7.0 are comparable. Although the sub-scores are different, the total scores are all around 210,000 points, which are all considered flagship platforms.

The total score of Snapdragon 845 exceeded 260,000 points, leading the other three by nearly 27%. As a new generation flagship platform, it is quite satisfactory to achieve such a performance improvement.

In terms of sub-item scores, except for memory, the Snapdragon 845 has great advantages over the other three. The CPU, GPU and UX scores are 20% or even higher ahead.

But surprisingly, Snapdragon 845 does not have an advantage in terms of memory performance. We can only attribute the reason to the development of prototypes. In the future, mass-produced models of various manufacturers should be able to make up for this deficiency.

In addition, it should be noted that the scores above 260,000 were achieved in a cold state (standing for 10 minutes). If it is in a continuous running state, the measured score is around 256,000 points, which is also satisfactory.

GFX Bench

After looking at the overall performance, let's continue to look at GFXBench, which focuses on GPU performance. Putting aside the Snapdragon 845, the Snapdragon 835 actually has certain advantages over the other two in terms of performance (the results are from the average scores in the GFXBench database).

The Snapdragon 845 further expands this advantage, with an improvement of more than 40% in the Manhattan 3.1 test compared to the Snapdragon 835, and nearly 30% performance improvement in other tests.

GeekBench

GeekBench is a test that focuses on CPU performance. The Snapdragon 845 single-threaded score is 2454, and the multi-threaded performance reaches 8368 points.

Compared with Snapdragon 835, the single-thread performance increased by 20% and the multi-thread performance increased by 28.6%, which is also satisfactory. Compared with Exynos 8895 and Kirin 970, Snapdragon 835 is basically in the same range, with no obvious difference.

3DMark

Next is the 3DMark test. The selected project is Sling Shot Unlimited, and the results of GPU test 1 and 2 are taken for comparison.

In comparison, the advantages of Snapdragon 845 are also very obvious, with the highest improvement approaching 30%.

JetStream

JetStream is a testing tool for examining the performance of the entire device. However, the results of Kirin 970 are not available here. Users who have relevant models can test and compare them by themselves.

Judging from the results, the Snapdragon 845 has an improvement of more than 21% compared to the Snapdragon 835, and has an even more obvious advantage over the Exynos 8895.

However, as I said at the beginning, the performance of the entire machine involves configuration factors, and the configurations of the selected models cannot be completely consistent, so it is only provided for reference.

In addition to the specific performance comparison, Snapdragon 845 has also made relevant optimizations in terms of power consumption. However, the performance in this regard cannot be measured with specific values ​​for the time being, and the results will only be known when the relevant flagship models are launched.

At the benchmarking site, Qualcomm said that the flagship models equipped with the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform can fully meet the battery life requirements of a whole day. In fact, in this regard, the flagship models equipped with the Snapdragon 835 mobile platform have already proved that they have such strength, and I believe that the Snapdragon 845 will not disappoint us either.

In addition, Qualcomm also stated that under the same load, the power consumption of Snapdragon 845 is significantly lower than that of Snapdragon 835, thanks to the improvement of the overall energy efficiency ratio of Snapdragon 845.

However, it should be noted that due to the improvement of the overall specifications of Snapdragon 845, the power consumption of Snapdragon 845 will be higher than that of Snapdragon 835 under full load, but Qualcomm did not disclose the specific extent.

But what is certain is that it is difficult to squeeze the Snapdragon 845 to full load, and its power consumption will be lower than that of the Snapdragon 835 in daily use.

As for the temperature that everyone likes to see, there is no obvious heat phenomenon in the normal use of the Snapdragon 845 development prototype. There will be a warm touch in the continuous running state. The temperature detected by the software is around 40 degrees. This temperature performance is even better than that of Snapdragon 835. The second-generation 10nm process perfectly suppresses the heat of Snapdragon 845.

Overall, I believe that the performance, temperature, and power consumption of Snapdragon 845 have reached the standards of a new generation of flagship platforms, and it is worthy of the title of "the strongest on earth" given to it by netizens.

Compared with Snapdragon 835, Snapdragon 845 has achieved a comprehensive performance improvement of 25% to 30%, which is very commendable for a flagship platform, especially when the manufacturing process is still 10nm (upgraded from 10nm LPE of Snapdragon 835 to 10nm LPP). Such an achievement fully demonstrates Qualcomm's technological research and development capabilities.

At present, Qualcomm has laid a good foundation for the next generation of flagship phones. It depends on how the major manufacturers stack up the materials. I believe that MWC at the end of this month will not disappoint us.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.