Unlike previous years when the company used Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon chip or its own in-house Exynos chip in the Galaxy S series, the Galaxy S23 series has completely switched to Snapdragon. However, Samsung likes to stand out, so the company has packed a proprietary chip called “Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy” into the phones. Let’s see what the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy is all about and what makes it different from the rest.
What is Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy?
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy is a variant of Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that only powers Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series phones. The chip is the result of a collaboration between Qualcomm and Samsung, and manufacturers promise that it will offer better performance compared to the standard version. Like the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, this chip uses a 4nm die and has 8 CPU cores: one primary core, four performance cores and three efficiency cores, which are also paired with an Adreno 740 GPU.
How different is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 from the Galaxy?
According to Samsung, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU core of the Galaxy device runs at a maximum clock speed of 3.36GHz. Compared to the normal version, Samsung version has 5.3% and 5.7% higher CPU and GPU speed respectively. As measured by GeekBench 5, the higher clock speed gives the Galaxy S23 Ultra an edge over the OnePlus 11, which runs the standard version of the Gen 2 chip.
Enobong Etteh of YouTube’s Boredatwork revealed that the Galaxy S23 Ultra scored 1,548 in single-core CPU tests, which is 32% higher than the OnePlus 11’s score of 1,165. In multi-core tests, the S23 Ultra still beats the OnePlus 11, albeit with a by only 3% (5042 compared to 4858).
While gaming, the YouTuber averages almost identical frames per second while playing top online Android FPS games like Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG, and Apex Legends. The S23 Ultra has the advantage in some cases, but on average it barely scored above 3fps against the OnePlus 11.
According to tests by Tom’s Guide, the S23 Ultra performs 35% faster in Geekbench 5’s single-core tests and 8% faster in multi-core tests (1578 vs 1166 and 5081 vs 4692). Graphics-wise, the S23 Ultra beats the OnePlus 11 at 87.5fps (vs. 84fps) in the 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited benchmark and 22.7fps vs. 84fps. 22 fps in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited benchmark.
As expected, an overclocked CPU and GPU give the S23 Ultra a performance advantage, justifying Qualcomm’s claim that the chip is the “fastest Snapdragon ever.” However, the difference in single-core performance is more noticeable, even though the chip’s core core has a maximum clock speed that’s only 5.3% higher. In addition to overclocking, according to Qualcomm, the S23 product line
The world’s first smartphone to use Snapdragon’s Cognitive ISP to enable real-time semantic segmentation for image optimization.
This means that the device is trying to understand the objects in the captured image for better processing and possibly better images. Qualcomm also adds that the new chip features an improved Hexagon processor, which the company says will result in better AI performance.
Deserves all the effort?
While it’s great that we get the same chip wherever we live when we buy the S23 series, the main question is whether Samsung has given up on developing Exynos chips. Well, yes, but we don’t know yet if this will remain the case for the foreseeable future.
Samsung’s Exynos chips couldn’t keep up with Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon series. Die-hard fans have been complaining about Samsung’s internal chips underperforming Qualcomm’s chips for some time, and the company has finally listened to them. Samsung has obviously given up on high-end hardware, but regardless, it’s still working on its own chips, which it could then use in Galaxy A series phones and other product lines, for example.
However, if Exynos chip performance eventually catches up to Qualcomm’s high-end product line, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Exynos return to the Galaxy S series of phones.
Is it worth buying the S23 series because of the chip?
Well, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for the Galaxy is clearly better than the regular version, but unfortunately it won’t be available in flagship phones from other Android OEMs. However, it is not worth buying the S23 series just because of the chip. Despite the better performance, it’s questionable how much the average user will notice the difference between the two chips in real use.
So, for this reason alone, the answer is that it is not unconditional. However, the new phones, which we are already actively testing, turned out to be great, and we boldly say: choosing the S23 series is worth it.
From 25.07.2022 it is only possible to comment on our Facebook pages!
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