Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Benchmarks: Comparing CPU and GPU Performance with the Kirin 990, Snapdragon 855, and Snapdragon 845

Nearly two weeks ago, Qualcomm invited tech journalists to Maui for the 2019 Snapdragon Tech Summit. At the event, the company unveiled its latest high-end SoC for mobile devices: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 mobile platform. Qualcomm says the new Snapdragon 865 boasts a 25% CPU performance increase and a 20% GPU performance increase over the previous generation Snapdragon 855. Also, the new SoC supports LPDDR5 memory and is manufactured on a newer 7nm process. Qualcomm’s latest silicon will make its way to 2020 flagships like the Xiaomi Mi 10, OPPO Find X2, and many other high-end smartphones.

But just how much faster is it than the previous generations? We benchmarked Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 reference device at the event to find out. We pit the new SoC against the Snapdragon 855+, the Snapdragon 855, the Snapdragon 845, and the Kirin 990 from Huawei’s HiSilicon. We would have loved to test the Snapdragon 865 against the MediaTek Dimensity 1000 or Samsung Exynos 990, but sadly, there aren’t any devices with the new MediaTek and Samsung SoCs. Once we get our hands on real devices with the Snapdragon 865, we’ll be testing the real-world performance outside of benchmarks, too.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon 855, Snapdragon 845, and Kirin 990 Specifications

	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845	HiSilicon Kirin 990 (4G)
CPU	1 Kryo 585 ‘Prime’ (ARM Cortex-A77-based), up to 2.84GHz 3 Kryo 585 ‘Performance’ (ARM Cortex-A77-based), up to 2.4GHz 4 Kryo 385 ‘Efficiency’ (ARM Cortex-A55-based), up to 1.8GHz 25% Performance improvement over the previous generation	1 Kryo 485 ‘Prime’ (ARM Cortex-A76-based), up to 2.96GHz 3 Kryo 485 ‘Performance’ (ARM Cortex-A76-based), up to 2.42GHz 4 Kryo 385 ‘Efficiency’ (ARM Cortex-A55-based), up to 1.8GHz	1 Kryo 485 ‘Prime’ (ARM Cortex-A76-based), up to 2.84GHz 3 Kryo 485 ‘Performance’ (ARM Cortex-A76-based), up to 2.42GHz 4 Kryo 385 ‘Efficiency’ (ARM Cortex-A55-based), up to 1.8GHz 45% Performance improvement over the previous generation	4 Kryo 385 ‘Performance’ (ARM Cortex-A75-based), up to 2.8GHz 4 Kryo 385 ‘Efficiency’ (ARM Cortex-A55-based), up to 1.8GHz 25% Performance improvement over the previous generation	2 ARM Cortex-A76, up to 2.86GHz 2 ARM Cortex-A76, up to 2.09GHz 4 ARM Cortex-A55, up to 1.86GHz
GPU	Adreno 650 20% Performance improvement over the previous generation	Adreno 640 (15% overclocked)	Adreno 640 20% Performance improvement over the previous generation	Adreno 630 25% Performance improvement over the previous generation	Mali-G76MP16
Memory	4x 16bit, 2133MHz LPDDR4X 4x 16bit, 2750MHz LPDDR5	4x 16bit, 2133MHz LPDDR4X	4x 16bit, 2133MHz LPDDR4X	4x 16-bit, 1866MHz LPDDR4X	4x 16-bit, LPDDR4X-4266
Manufacturing Process	7nm (TSMC N7P)	7nm (TSMC)	7nm (TSMC)	10nm LPP (Samsung)	7nm (TSMC)

Quick Overview of Each Benchmark

Benchmark explainer by Mario Serrafero

AnTuTu: This is a holistic benchmark. AnTuTu tests the CPU, GPU, and memory performance, while including both abstract tests and, as of late, relatable user experience simulations (for example, the subtest which involves scrolling through a ListView). The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations.
GeekBench: A CPU-centric test that uses several computational workloads including encryption, compression (text and images), rendering, physics simulations, computer vision, ray tracing, speech recognition, and convolutional neural network inference on images. The score breakdown gives specific metrics. The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations, placing a large emphasis on integer performance (65%), then float performance (30%) and finally crypto (5%).
GFXBench: Aims to simulate video game graphics rendering using the latest APIs. Lots of onscreen effects and high-quality textures. Newer tests use Vulkan while legacy tests use OpenGL ES 3.1. The outputs are frames during test and frames per second (the other number divided by the test length, essentially), instead of a weighted score.
GFXBench Subscore Explanations. Click to expand.
- Aztec Ruins: These tests are the most computationally heavy ones offered by GFXBench. Currently, top mobile chipsets cannot sustain 30 frames per second. Specifically, the test offers really high polygon count geometry, hardware tessellation, high-resolution textures, global illumination and plenty of shadow mapping, copious particle effects, as well as bloom and depth of field effects. Most of these techniques will stress the shader compute capabilities of the processor.
- Manhattan ES 3.0/3.1: This test remains relevant given that modern games have already arrived at its proposed graphical fidelity and implement the same kinds of techniques. It features complex geometry employing multiple render targets, reflections (cubic maps), mesh rendering, many deferred lighting sources, as well as bloom and depth of field in a post-processing pass.
Speedometer, Jetstream: Javascript, core language features and performance on various operations; Javascript math, crypto, and search algorithm performance.
3DMark (Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1/Vulkan): The test runs on a mobile-optimized rendering engine using OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan (on Android) or Metal (on iOS). It comes with two subscores, each in turn featuring multiple subscores, all of which ultimately use frames per second as their metric across multiple testing scenarios. This benchmark will test the full range of API features, including transform feedback, multiple render targets and instanced rendering, uniform buffers, and features such as particle illumination, volumetric lighting, deferred lighting, depth of field and bloom in post-processing, all using compute shaders. Offscreen tests use a fixed time step between frames, and rule out any impact caused by vertical sync, display resolution scaling and related OS parameters. The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations.
PCMark 2.0: Tests the device as a complete unit. It simulates everyday use cases that can implement abstract algorithms and a lot of arithmetic; the difference is that these are dispatched within an application environment, with a particular practical purpose, and handled by API calls and Android libraries common to multiple applications. The test will output a variety of scores corresponding to the various subtests, which will be detailed below; the composite, Work 2.0 score is simply the geometric mean of all of these scores, meaning all tests are weighted equally.
PCMark 2.0 Subscore Explanations. Click to expand.
- Web browsing 2.0 simulates browsing social media: rendering the web page, searching for the content, re-rendering the page as new images are added, and so on. This subtest uses the native Android WebView to render (WebKit) and interact with the content, which is locally stored — this means you can run it offline, but it does not simulate web browsing fully as it rules out internet connection factors (latency, network speed). It is specifically tracking frame rates and completion time across seven tasks, with their score being a multiple of their geometric mean.
- Video Editing simulates video editing performance: applying effects to a video using OpenGL ES 2.0 fragment shaders, decoding video frames (sent to an Android GLSurfaceView), and rendering/encoding the video in H.264/MPEG-4AVC at several frame rates and resolutions up to 4K. It is specifically tracking frame rates on the UI, except for a final test tracking the completion time of a video editing pipeline.
- Writing simulates general document and text editing work: adding or editing texts and images within a document, copying and pasting text, and so on. It uses the native Android EditText view as well as PdfRenderer and PdfDocument APIs. It will open compressed documents, move text bodies, insert images in the document, then save them as a PDF, to then encrypt and decrypt them (AES). It specifically tracks task completion times for the processes of opening and saving files, adding images and moving text bodies, encrypt/decrypt the file, and render the PDF pages on ImageViews.
- Photo Editing simulates photo-editing performance: opening images, applying different effects via filters (grains, blurs, embossing, sharpening and so on) and saving the image. It uses 4MP JPEG source images and manipulates them in bitmap format using the android.media.effect API, android.renderscript API’s RenderScript Intrinsics, android-jhlabs, and the native android.graphics API for drawing the process on the screen. This is an extremely comprehensive test in that it will be impacted by storage access, CPU performance, GPU performance, and it is dependent on many different Android APIs. The test specifically measures memory and storage access times, encoding and decoding times, task completion times. The various filters and effects come from different APIs.
- Data manipulation simulates database management operations: parsing and validating data from files, interacting with charts, and so on. It will open (date, value) tuples from CSV, XML, JSON files and then render animated charts with the MPAndroidChart library. It specifically tracks data parsing times as well as draws per second of each chart animation (similar to frame rate, but specific to the updating chart).

Source links for each benchmark can be found at the end of the article.

Test Devices

	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845	HiSilicon Kirin 990
Device Name	Qualcomm Reference Device (QRD)	ASUS ROG Phone II	Google Pixel 4	Google Pixel 3 XL	Huawei Mate 30 Pro
Software	Android 10 (Qualcomm customized AOSP software)	Android 9 (ZenUI 6.0 OEM software with October 2019 security patch)	Android 10 (Google Pixel OEM software with December 2019 security patch)	Android 10 (Google Pixel OEM software with December 2019 security patch)	Android 10 (EMUI 10.0 OEM software with October 2019 security patch)
Display	2880×1440 @ 60Hz	2340×1080 @ 60Hz	2280×1080 @ 60Hz	2960×1440 @ 60Hz	2400×1176 @ 60Hz
Memory	12GB LPDDR5	8GB LPDDR4X	6GB LPDDR4X	4GB LPDDR4X	8GB LPDDR4X
Storage	128GB UFS 3.0	128GB UFS 3.0	64GB UFS 2.1	64GB UFS 2.1	256GB UFS 3.0
Performance Mode	Yes*	No	No	No	No

*Performance mode on the Snapdragon 865 QRD makes workloads appear 20% “heavier” to the scheduler. This means that a CPU that is loaded 80% will appear 100% loaded to the scheduler, ramping up clocks faster and migrating tasks from the little to the big cores faster. However, CPU clock speeds are NOT boosted.

Benchmark Results

Main Scores

Benchmark	Version	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845	HiSilicon Kirin 990
AnTuTu	8.0.4	565,384	425,963	386,499	278,647	389,505
Geekbench single-core	5.0.2	929	760	600	521	750
Geekbench multi-core	5.0.2	3,450	2,840	2,499	2,125	2,887
GFXBench ES 3.0 1080 Manhattan offscreen	5.00	126	110	92	82	104
GFXBench ES 3.1 1080 Carchase offscreen	5.00	50	48	40	35	38
GFXBench ES 3.1 1080 Manhattan offscreen	5.00	88	78	67	61	67
GFXBench ES 2.0 1080 T-Rex offscreen	5.00	205	185	164	152	105
GFXBench 1440p Aztec Ruins Vulkan (High Tier) Offscreen IFH	5.00	20	19	16	14	16
GFXBench 1440p Aztec Ruins OpenGL (High Tier) Offscreen IFH	5.00	20	18	16	14	18
Speedometer	2.00	80	36	53	49	65.4
JetStream – Geometric mean	1.10	123	116	98	85	95.8
PCMark – Work 2.0	2.0.3716	12,626	9,068	9,311	8,988	8,667
Androbench Sequential Read (MB/s)	5.0.1	1,459	1,398	873	659	1,451.09
Androbench Sequential Write (MB/s)	5.0.1	225	217	189	231	443.66
Androbench Random Read (IOPS)	5.0.1	50,378	41,315	37,600	32,376	53,114.78
Androbench Random Write (IOPS)	5.0.1	48,410	35,422	41,340	37,417	55,972.18
Androbench Random Read (MB/s)	5.0.1	195	161	147	126	207.47
Androbench Random Write (MB/s)	5.0.1	189	138	161	146	218.64
Androbench SQLite Insert	5.0.1	3,705	3,187	3,207	2,627	4,968.81
Androbench SQLite Update	5.0.1	4,014	3,931	3,996	3,333	6,090.65
Androbench SQLite Delete	5.0.1	5,037	4,964	4,558	4,081	7,664.88
3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 Overall Score	2.0.4646	7,008	6,201	5,174	3,431	5,677
3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan Overall Score	2.0.4646	6,449	5,339	4,339	3,273	4,303

Subscores

Benchmark Subscore Chart. Click to expand.

Benchmark	Subscore	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855	Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
AnTuTu	CPU	182,101	118,473	117,500	77,245
	CPU Mathematical Operations	47,555	33,101	35,852	19,449
	CPU Common Algorithms	40,260	23,468	20,400	13,203
	CPU Multi-Core	94,286	61,904	61,248	44,593
	GPU	218,496	193,905	160,291	117,022
	GPU Terracotta – Vulkan	54,634	49,080	40,874	33,176
	GPU Coastline – Vulkan	77,022	68,847	49,274	36,549
	GPU Refinery – OpenGL ES3.1+AEP	86,840	75,978	70,143	58,356
	MEM	81,392	65,011	56,889	46,041
	MEM RAM Access	37,450	27,154	25,031	19,153
	MEM ROM App IO	4,876	4,785	4,914	4,539
	MEM ROM Sequential Read	22,039	20,046	13,240	9,499
	MEM ROM Sequential Write	3,513	3,309	2,891	3,328
	MEM ROM Random Access	13,514	9,718	10,813	9,523
	UX	83,396	48,573	51,818	38,339
	UX Data Security	13,788	8,835	9,384	6,041
	UX Data Processing	28,615	9,852	9,088	5,959
	UX Image Processing	14,473	9,799	12,741	10,192
	UX User Experience	26,520	20,088	20,605	16,147
3DMark	Sling Shot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 Graphics Score	8,158	7,092	5,631	3,384
	Sling Shot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 Physics Score	4,693	4,308	4,401	3,623
	Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan Graphics Score	8,224	6,557	4,845	3,425
	Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan Physics Score	3,674	3,246	3,177	2,835
PCMark	Web Browsing 2.0 score	11,680	6,427	6,985	7,806
	Video Editing score	6,575	5,894	5,611	6,638
	Writing 2.0 score	14,389	11,475	10,945	9,364
	Photo Editing 2.0 score	36,868	18,247	22,159	17,516
	Data Manipulation score	7,880	7,732	7,361	6,902
Geekbench	Single-core Crypto Score	1,435	1,055	873	838
	Single-core Integer Score	878	736	578	513
	Single-core Floating Point Score	956	762	604	488
	Multi-core Crypto Score	5,594	3,874	3,746	3,703
	Multi-core Integer Score	3,304	2,764	2,410	2,093
	Multi-core Floating Point Score	3,412	2,831	2,482	1,930

Main Scores Comparison

Subscore	Versus Snapdragon 865	Versus Snapdragon 855+	Versus Snapdragon 855	Versus Snapdragon 845	Versus Kirin 990
AnTuTu	1x	1.33x	1.46x	2.03x	1.45x
Geekbench single-core	1x	1.22x	1.55x	1.78x	1.24x
Geekbench multi-core	1x	1.21x	1.38x	1.62x	1.2x
GFXBench ES 3.0 1080 Manhattan offscreen	1x	1.15x	1.37x	1.54x	1.21x
GFXBench ES 3.1 1080 Carchase offscreen	1x	1.04x	1.25x	1.43x	1.32x
GFXBench ES 3.1 1080 Manhattan offscreen	1x	1.13x	1.31x	1.44x	1.31x
GFXBench ES 2.0 1080 T-Rex offscreen	1x	1.11x	1.25x	1.35x	1.95x
GFXBench 1440p Aztec Ruins Vulkan (High Tier) Offscreen IFH	1x	1.05x	1.25x	1.43x	1.25x
GFXBench 1440p Aztec Ruins OpenGL (High Tier) Offscreen IFH	1x	1.11x	1.25x	1.43x	1.11x
Speedometer	1x	2.22x	1.51x	1.63x	1.22x
JetStream – Geometric mean	1x	1.06x	1.26x	1.45x	1.28x
PCMark – Work 2.0	1x	1.39x	1.36x	1.4x	1.46x
Androbench Sequential Read (MB/s)	1x	1.04x	1.67x	2.21x	1.01x
Androbench Sequential Write (MB/s)	1x	1.04x	1.19x	0.97x	0.51x
Androbench Random Read (IOPS)	1x	1.22x	1.34x	1.56x	0.95x
Androbench Random Write (IOPS)	1x	1.37x	1.17x	1.29x	0.86x
Androbench Random Read (MB/s)	1x	1.21x	1.33x	1.55x	0.94x
Androbench Random Write (MB/s)	1x	1.37x	1.17x	1.29x	0.86x
Androbench SQLite Insert	1x	1.16x	1.16x	1.41x	0.75x
Androbench SQLite Update	1x	1.02x	1x	1.2x	0.66x
Androbench SQLite Delete	1x	1.01x	1.11x	1.23x	0.66x
3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 Overall Score	1x	1.13x	1.35x	2.04x	1.23x
3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan Overall Score	1x	1.21x	1.49x	1.97x	1.50x

Subscores Comparison

Benchmark Subscores Comparison Chart. Click to expand.

Benchmark	Subscore	Versus Snapdragon 865	Versus Snapdragon 855+	Versus Snapdragon 855	Versus Snapdragon 845
AnTuTu	CPU	1x	1.54x	1.55x	2.36x
	CPU Mathematical Operations	1x	1.44x	1.33x	2.45x
	CPU Common Algorithms	1x	1.72x	1.97x	3.05x
	CPU Multi-Core	1x	1.52x	1.54x	2.11x
	GPU	1x	1.13x	1.36x	1.87x
	GPU Terracotta – Vulkan	1x	1.11x	1.34x	1.65x
	GPU Coastline – Vulkan	1x	1.12x	1.56x	2.11x
	GPU Refinery – OpenGL ES3.1+AEP	1x	1.14x	1.24x	1.49x
	MEM	1x	1.25x	1.43x	1.77x
	MEM RAM Access	1x	1.38x	1.5x	1.96x
	MEM ROM App IO	1x	1.02x	0.99x	1.07x
	MEM ROM Sequential Read	1x	1.1x	1.66x	2.32x
	MEM ROM Sequential Write	1x	1.06x	1.22x	1.06x
	MEM ROM Random Access	1x	1.39x	1.25x	1.42x
	UX	1x	1.72x	1.61x	2.18x
	UX Data Security	1x	1.56x	1.47x	2.28x
	UX Data Processing	1x	2.9x	3.15x	4.8x
	UX Image Processing	1x	1.48x	1.14x	1.42x
	UX User Experience	1x	1.32x	1.29x	1.64x
3DMark	Sling Shot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 Graphics Score	1x	1.15x	1.45x	2.41x
	Sling Shot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 Physics Score	1x	1.09x	1.07x	1.3x
	Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan Graphics Score	1x	1.25x	1.7x	2.4x
	Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan Physics Score	1x	1.13x	1.16x	1.3x
PCMark	Web Browsing 2.0 score	1x	1.82x	1.67x	1.5x
	Video Editing score	1x	1.12x	1.17x	0.99x
	Writing 2.0 score	1x	1.25x	1.31x	1.54x
	Photo Editing 2.0 score	1x	2.02x	1.66x	2.1x
	Data Manipulation score	1x	1.02x	1.07x	1.14x
Geekbench	Single-core Crypto Score	1x	1.36x	1.64x	1.71x
	Single-core Integer Score	1x	1.19x	1.52x	1.71x
	Single-core Floating Point Score	1x	1.25x	1.58x	1.96x
	Multi-core Crypto Score	1x	1.44x	1.49x	1.51x
	Multi-core Integer Score	1x	1.2x	1.37x	1.58x
	Multi-core Floating Point Score	1x	1.21x	1.37x	1.77x

Concluding Highlights

Analysis by Mario Serrafero:

For AnTuTu’s final score, we observe a large 33% bump over the 855+ and a massive improvement of around 45% over the 855. The CPU subtests showcase massive improvements, with uplifts in each subscore ranging from 15% to 97%. These results are surprising given that Qualcomm posted a respectable 25% CPU performance uplift over the Snapdragon 855, yet we see all CPU subscores go up by over 40%, and even 70%. The GPU side of the subscores, however, sees a much more restrained increase of around 13% on average, compared to the 855+, or 24% to 56% compared to our 855 scores from the Google Pixel 4.
The popular PCMark 2.0 saw a massive jump of almost 40% in its “Work 2.0” final score, compared to the 855+. Looking at the subscores, it seems that most of the improvement lies in the Photo Editing 2.0 subtest, which nearly doubles in score, followed by a Web Browsing score improvement of around 80%. The final score is simply the average between all subscores, so these massive bumps end up being balancing out the more conservative figures of the other subscores, which remain constant or rise by less than 25%.
Geekbench 5 subscores gave us a decent look into where the resulting ~20% increase in Single-core and Multi-core scores comes from. The crypto tests (which are weighted the least in calculating the final scores) had a performance increment of 36% and 44% (single and multi, respectively) compared to our 855+ results, whereas integer and floating-point performance only rose by about 19% to 25%, perfectly in-line with Qualcomm’s figures. The gap is much larger if we compare the 865 to our 855 results from the Pixel 4, as crypto goes up by 66% while integer and floating-point improvements sit over 50% for single-core tests and over 35% for multi-core tests. Given the 865 features the same clock speeds as the 855, we see a bump in integer and floating score performance per MHz.
3DMark scores also fall more-or-less in line with the expected 20% faster graphics rendering that Qualcomm boasted at the Snapdragon tech summit. The graphics and physics scores saw an increase of 15% and 11% (respectively) over the 855+ for the OpenGL ES 3.1 test, and 25% and 22% for the Vulkan test. This suggests the 865 is a healthy upgrade for gamers.
GFXBench only saw a performance boost of 5% to 15% over the 855+, though when comparing it against the regular 855 those numbers jump above the 20% year-on-year increments posted by the company.

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