A Snapdragon 865 specs leak prompts Galaxy S11 chipsets comparison

by Daniel Petrov / Nov 12, 2019, 5:21 AM

A Snapdragon 865 specs leak prompts Galaxy S11 chipsets comparison

Samsung's processor foundries missed one production cycle of the flagship Snapdragon 8-series processor but their new and superior extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has won the hearts of Qualcomm's management for Snapdragon 865.

Since we are expecting the 865, together with Samsung's newly-announced Exynos 990, to be done on the second-gen 7nm EUV process that Apple's processor maker is yet to master, there is every chance that those two top-shelf chipset will land in Samsung's high-end Galaxy S11 series in the spring.

As if to corroborate that notion, Snapdragon 865 specs have leaked out, and they tip performance gains in comparison with Snapdragon 855+ that are commensurate with the move from the first generation of the 7nm process to Samsung's second-gen lithography.

The Galaxy S11 will eventually thus have a chipset that is 20% faster than the fastest Android chips at the moment, with the corresponding graphics subsystem gains. Here is a quick comparison table with all the known Snapdragon 865 features against the Exynos 990 and some other notables.

Snapdragon 865 and 855+ vs Exynos 990 vs Apple A13 specs comparison

We are comparing the currently known Exynos 990 specs and features below for your viewing pleasure. For reference, we included the current Snapdragon 855 that is in most 2019 Android flagships already.

	Exynos 990 (Galaxy S11)	Snapdragon 865 (Galaxy S11)	Snapdragon 855+	Apple A13
Production process	7nm EUV	7nm EUV	7nm (TSMC FF)	7nm (TSMC N7P)
Processor cores	2x Exynos M5 2x Cortex A76 4x Cortex A55	1x 2.84GHz A77 3x 2.42GHz A77 4x 1.8GHz A55	1x Kryo 485 Gold (custom Cortex-A76) @ 2.96GHz 3x Kryo 485 Gold (custom Cortex-A76) @ 2.42GHz 4x Kryo 485 Silver (custom Cortex-A55) @ 1.80GHz	2x Lightning @2.66GHz 4x Thunder @1.7GHz
GPU	Mali-G77 MP11	Adreno 650 at 587MHz	Adreno 640	Apple custom quad-core
Modem	Exynos 5123 (Category 24) Downloads up to 7.3Gbps (mmWave), 5.1Gbps (sub-6GHz), or 3Gbps (4G LTE), 8xCA Uploads: up to 422 Mbps	X55 5G modem add-on up to 7 Gbps over 5G, and 2.5 Gbps download speeds on LTE	Snapdragon X24 LTE (Category 20) Downloads: up to 2Gbps, 7xCA Uploads: up to 316Mbps X50 5G modem add-on	Intel XMM7660 (Category 19) Downloads: up to 1.6Gbps, 7xCA Uploads: up to 225Mbps
AI co-processor	Yes, dual-core NPU	Yes	Yes	Yes, octa-core Neural Engine
Video encode	4K HDR at 150fps 8K HDR at 30fps	8K HDR	4K HDR10+	4K HDR at 60fps
Misc.	UFS 3.0 storage support for up to 2.9GB/s speeds LPDDR5 memory support Single-camera up to 108MP 120Hz display refresh rate	LPDDR5 memory support	4K HDR Bokeh Video 8K 360 VR video playback Always-on noise cancellation Dual-frequency GPS	Computational photography Machine learning capable of 1 trillion operations per second

As you can see, there is nothing groundbreaking compared to Snapdragon 855+ when it comes to raw power, but the added value of today's chipsets is not the clock speeds - they are high enough as it is - but rather the accompanying features and especially the modem integration.

If the rumor that Galaxy S11 series will have five models if we count those with and without 5G as separate handsets pans out, this means that, while Qualcomm's X55 modem supports anything from 5G down to 2G, it will still be an add-on rather than an integrated affair.

Options

7 Comments

4. PhoneCritic

Posts: 1363; Member since: Oct 05, 2011

Well one thing is for sure there is a 7nm Soc coming and after that a 5nm SoC but how far can it go before we cap out? 3nm, 2nm I doubt we get 1nm Soc? there has to be some new revolutionary quantum SoC to get us below 1nm or so.

posted on Nov 12, 2019, 9:31 AM 2

5. sgodsell

Posts: 7573; Member since: Mar 16, 2013

They can go farther, especially with integrating more on board the SoCs themselves. Like include all the RAM on the SoC. It's not like people can change the storage or RAM on the devices they buy today. Why not storage? They already have GPUs, memory controllers, camera controllers, DMA, NPU (AI), and more. Those things use to be separate chips. The SD 865 is suppose to be the first SoC with an integrated modem on board. There is going to be two variants of the SD 865, one without the built in modem, and one with the modem built in. Plus some chip manufacturers are already looking at lowering the voltage to around 0.5 volts. That would greatly increase battery life. Trust me there is always more that can be done. Maybe not to the level that occured in the past. But there is still a lot that can be done.

posted on Nov 12, 2019, 12:08 PM 1

6. _gianni.r

Posts: 4; Member since: May 30, 2019

I think the question he was asking was not calling out a foreshadowing for technological slowdown, but more along the lines of "when will Moore's law no longer be relevant?"

posted on Nov 12, 2019, 2:34 PM 2

8. koioz

Posts: 183; Member since: Nov 29, 2018

Since silicon have limits to be shrink down to ultra low nm, the solution is called chiplet design to gain more performance and reduce cost and power usage. Good example is AMD's threadripper cpu which is up to 64 cores.

posted on Nov 12, 2019, 5:28 PM 3

7. Dr.Phil

Posts: 2487; Member since: Feb 14, 2011

Qualcomm will be competing with potential 5nm process chipsets from Huawei and Apple next year. It'll remain to be seen whether that will matter a lot or not.

posted on Nov 12, 2019, 2:57 PM 0

9. Marcwand3l

Posts: 456; Member since: May 08, 2017

5nm won't be a full generational improvement over 7nm more like half a node improvement. Anyway it won't matter because by the time next year's iphone will launch, phones with SD 865 will be hundreds of dollars cheaper and Qualcomm will also be announcing their 5nm SOC.