Qualcomm usually invites tech journalists to an annual event, usually in conjunction with the launch of the new flagship mobile chipsets of the Snapdragon family, within which it is It is possible to test the new processors through prototype devices that will not be marketed.

This year due to the pandemic in progress it was not possible to organize the event, however the company has disclosed the first results of the most popular benchmarks performed on the Snapdragon Mobile Platform 888 5G . The tests have been launched three times, and show the capabilities of the platform on a general level, CPU, GPU and Artificial Intelligence.

Snapdragon 888 5G in pills

In short, Snapdragon 888 is designed with a new 5-nm production process , and is based on completely new components compared to Snapdragon 865. Specifically, we find a CPU with 8 Kryo cores 680 which should guarantee the 25% more performance than the previous generation with an improved efficiency of 25 %. The 8 cores use a similar configuration as the predecessor: 1 core reaches the maximum frequency of 2, 84 GHz, 3 cores are limited to 2, 42 GHz and finally the 4 cores the rest are clocked at 1, 80 GHz.

On the graphic side we find the proprietary GPU Adreno 660 which promises the 35% higher graphics performance with 20% higher, also ensuring superior graphic rendering through image enhancement features applicable in real time. Then we have support for Variable Rate Shading, a new dedicated engine for Artificial Intelligence (Hexagon 780), the new ISP Spectra 580 and, you cannot miss it, a new modem 5G X 60 proprietary , compatible with Sub6 and mmWave frequency bands.

For further information on the processor specifications, please refer to our complete article at this address.

Snapdragon 888 5G, the results of first benchmarks

But how does this new processor fare in the most usual tests on Android? To give an initial answer to the question is the same Qualcomm, which has provided us a series of results that we report below . The benchmarks were refined with a terminal configured with 12 GB LPDDR5 RAM, 512 GB of storage, one battery of 3. 780 mAh and a Full HD + display (2340 x 1080 pixels) with diagonal of 6, 65 “and refresh rate equal to 120 Hz.

As you can see from the graph just published, the Snapdragon results 888 5G looks very promising. On AnTuTu it got a value of 735439 to the third iteration of the test: it is of a score that – if placed in relation to those we have obtained us during our product tests – proves superior to both Apple A 14 Bionic (the SoC of the latest iPhones), both compared to Kirin 9000 (installed on Mate 40 Pro). It is clear, however, that it would be appropriate to test the different technologies on equal terms, but the results could vary by a few percentage points (probably irrelevant) compared to our tests.

The gap with competition is reduced with Geekbench 5.0.2 , where Snapdragon 888 5G records a single-core score of 1135 and of 3794 in multi-core . This is a result in line with that of Kirin 9000 (we have achieved 3704 points in multi-core and 1020 in single-core), but lower than that recorded by the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max (which exceed, respectively, the 4000 points in multi-core ei 1500 points in single-core).

GPU side, on the other hand, Adreno 660 managed to generate an average of 86 fps with the Aztec Ruins Vulkan test (Normal Tier) in Full HD and 169 fps with Manhattan 3.0 in Full HD (in the latter case a smartphone with Snapdragon 865 should generate approximately 120 fps). Qualcomm also evaluated the performance of the integrated Neural Engine on the new Snapdragon 888 5G: the score with AITuTu is very interesting , equal to 911883, about double what we might expect from a device with Snapdragon 865.

As we have already said these are only the first results of Qualcomm’s Mobile Platform flagship for the 2021, and were published by the same manufacturer. We will have to wait for the first months of 2021 to get your hands on a ready device for marketing, and to test all the qualities. Those shown by Qualcomm were however very interesting, in line with the other proposals of the competition of the same generation, and sometimes even higher. We will certainly know more once we get our hands on the first products with the new American flagship SoC.